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Molly Guion

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Molly Guion
Born
Mary Guion

(1910-09-23)September 23, 1910
Died1982
NationalityAmerican
Known forportraits
SpouseJohn Borden Smyth[1][2]

Molly Guion (23 September 1910 – 1982) was an American portrait painter. She taught at the Art Students League of New York.

Early life and education

Molly Guion was born in New Rochelle, New York on 23 September 1910.[3] Her parents were Clarence Child and Georgia Palmer (Beardsley) Guion.[3]

She attended the Sea Pines School of Charm and Personality for Young Women in Brewster, Massachusetts and Montgomery College.[4] She then studied at the Grand Central School of Art.[4] She was taught by Dimitri Romanovsky.[1]

Career

Guion was initially unsuccessful as a portrait painter in New York.[1] She travelled to Britain to look for work, and was successful there in making contacts and having work commissioned by well-known people.[1] She "spent several years “painting lords and dukes, staying in castles, having a marvelous time"".[1] She painted Winston Churchill in 1946.[3] She was commissioned to paint The Queen's Beasts at Westminster Abbey in 1953.[3]

An exhibition of twenty-three of her portraits, titled Tradition and Pageantry in Britain, was held in Buckingham Palace and then toured the United States in 1952.[1][5]

In 1977, her rate for portraits was $1,000 to $4,000, with her gallery retaining a third as commission.[1]

Guion taught at the Art Students League of New York.[6]

Her work is held in the Government Art Collection, at the Black Watch Museum at Balhousie Castle and at Orkney Museum.[7] Her painting of Elizabeth II, completed in 1953, was bought by the Wardroom Officers of the Royal Naval Barracks at Portsmouth.[8][9] One of her several portraits of Thomas E. Dewey is at the Hall of Governors at the New York State Capitol.[10]

Later life and death

She married John Borden Smyth, a naval officer, in 1957.[2] They lived in Rye, New York, in a house which Guion believed to be haunted.[1][11][12]

Guion died in 1982.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Feron, James (23 October 1977). "INTERVIEW". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Mrs. John Borden Smyth". Bronxville Review Press and Reporter. 16 May 1957. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. James T. White & Company. 1960. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  4. ^ a b J. Marshall Guion (IV) (1976). Descendants of Louis Guion, Huguenot, of La Rochelle, France and New Rochelle, West Chester County, Province of New York: A Guion Family Album, 1654 to 1976. Guion. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  5. ^ "EXHIBITION OPENS". Bronxville Reporter. 1 May 1952. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  6. ^ "DOROTHY GAY JUERGENS". Larchmont Gazette. 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  7. ^ a b "Molly Guion". Art UK. The Public Catalogue Foundation. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  8. ^ "Painting of Queen at Exhibition". Portsmouth Evening News. 5 May 1954. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  9. ^ "Queen's Portrait". Birmingham Daily Post. 4 May 1954. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  10. ^ "Virtual Visit: Object Stories - Governor Dewey Portrait". Visit the Empire State Plaza & New York State Capitol. New York State. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  11. ^ Cook, Joan (16 April 1971). "House With the Spirit (and Possibly Spirits?) of an Earlier Age". New York Times. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  12. ^ Hans Holzer (25 September 2012). Ghosts. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4532-8069-0. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
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