David and Beatrice

Drawing Rooms celebrates the life and work of David W. Cummings, a life lived together with Beatrice M. Mady. Their work is full of shapes and symbols, and their message is in living color.David came of age as a painter in the mid-late 1960s. After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1963, he immersed himself in the Bay Area Figurative Painting scene in San Francisco and soaked in the California light. He moved to New York City after receiving his M.F.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1968. A pioneer in the SoHo art scene, he became part of the Third Generation Abstraction Expressionists and spent the 70s painting and exhibiting in New York City and beyond. David's work was featured in a survey of abstract painting, Lyrical Abstraction, that traveled to museums across the country before finally arriving at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.In 1977, he met Beatrice when he was giving a lecture at Pratt where she was studying for her M.F.A. The two started a relationship as artists and a romance that would span four decades.By the early 1980s, David and Beatrice had married and left their SoHo loft behind, finding a factory building in the Jersey City Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, and converting it into living/studio spaces.Pioneers in the Jersey City art scene, they were among the early artists who came to Jersey City and formed relationships with many of the artists in the building fondly referred to as 'The 111'. Beatrice helped build the arts community through her active participation, encouragement and support in Pro Arts Jersey City, as a Professor and Gallery Director at Saint Peter's University, and, of course, her artwork. David passed from us suddenly last year, but he left the brilliance of his work for us to keep.We are excited to show so much of his work in this retrospective, and to exhibit them along with Beatrice's works, highlighting the exciting ways these two artists' works developed and interacted with each other