Marion Seawell This 2002 oil on canvas view of the San Francisco Bay entitled View from Alta Plaza Park, San Francisco is by Northern California artist Marion Seawell (1928-2017). Seawell was a painter and writer whose work blended autobiography, humor, and psychological depth. Born in Yakima and raised in Walla Walla, Washington, she later studied with California artist Henrietta Shore before attending the San Francisco Art Institute. At nineteen she moved to Big Sur, where living with the Fassett family during the creation of the Nepenthe restaurant sparked what she called her transformation into a “wild Bohemian.” In the early 1950s she spent two years in New York, moving through the city’s art circles. Seawell spent most of her adult life in San Francisco, where she worked as a meticulous bookkeeper while maintaining a private, autobiographical studio practice. Her symbolic paintings and drawings often used animals and childhood memories to explore emotional truths. Her popular 1971 drawing Pyramid of Cats became widely reproduced and entered the Achenbach Foundation at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Her dual creative identities—right-handed painter and left-handed diarist “M.C. Wells”—came together in her candid 2008 monograph This Has Certainly Been a Lot of Fun. She spent her final years at The Redwoods in Mill Valley and died in 2017 at age 88, leaving a body of work marked by wit and self-reflection. 2002 Oil on Canvas 14.5"x11.5" framed, 13"x10" unframed Signed and dated lower left, signed, dated and titled on the back. Excellent vintage condition. Framed in a contemporary wood floater frame with a silver face and walnut open grain sides.
