Marvin Cone

Who was Marvin Cone?

Marvin Cone was an American painter in the regionalist style.

Cone was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and lived there most of his life. He graduated from Washington High School in 1910. Cone attended college and traveled to Paris with his contemporary and high-school friend, Grant Wood. After his return to the United States, Cone helped to found the Stone City Art Colony. He was a professor at Coe College for more than forty years. Most of his paintings can now be seen at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. Some of his sketches can also been found in the permanent collection of the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art in Cedar Falls. "Untitled," a painted scene of doors in an interior, can be seen at the Blanden Memorial Art Museum in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

In 1906 he began a lifelong friendship with Grant Wood. He graduated from Coe College in 1914 and then studied for several years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He enlisted in the Iowa National's Guard's 34th Infantry Division in 1917, during which time he won a training camp design competition with a "Red Bull" insignia, which the unit wears to this day.