"This book is the first biography of a woman whose star blazed through the twentieth-century art world. Born in Brooklyn in 1909, artist Marion Greenwood attended and thrived at now-storied institutions and arts centers: The Art Students League, the studio of German modernist Winold Reiss, the Woodstock Colony, and Yaddo. In 1933, she catapulted to international fame as the first woman to paint a public mural in Mexico and was celebrated by Diego Rivera as one of "the world's greatest living women mural painters." Greenwood traveled the globe to create award-winning portraits of people from diverse backgrounds, crossing racial, cultural, and class lines to reflect her vision for a more just world. Based on a decade of research and interviews, biographer Joanne B. Mulcahy integrates Greenwood's adventuresome personal life with her journey to artistic glory. Mulcahy deftly contextualizes Greenwood's participation in the heady art scenes of 1920s and 1930s Mexico, New York City, and Paris, and her role as one of two women artist-correspondents during World War II. After social realism and portraiture fell from favor, Greenwood doggedly stuck with "the human thing" in art. Her freewheeling romantic life defied expectations for women, and she fought sexist critics who mixed acclaim for her work with commentary on her stunning beauty. A feminist pioneer, she made a living as an artist in a time when few women did. In following Greenwood's maverick path and artistic achievements, this book carves out a central place for her in the pantheon of history's remarkable women artists"--