[3] With his business failing, in 1912 he set out to return to the United States in time for McKinley's ninth birthday on the Titanic.
The loss of her father haunted McKinley for the rest of her life, and in 1969 she recorded "In Memoriam, Titanic Lifeboat Blues.
On October 1, 1943, McKinley married Army Corporal Larry Leonard in Denver, a former actor and athletic instructor.
[16] A short obituary distributed by the Associated Press noted she was a member of the illustrious New York Guggenheim family, that she was determined to make a name for herself as an artist, that her art works were shown in museums in the United States and Europe, and were in the collections of such celebrities as Greer Garson, Benny Goodman, and Jason Robards, and that she had died of cancer at the age of 92.
Whilst living in the south of England with Denys King-Farlow in the 1930s, McKinley was influenced by a group of avant-garde artists, and had her first solo exhibition in London in April 1937 at the Coolings Gallery.
[2] She received instruction from artists Rowland Suddaby, Raymond Coxon, and Edna Ginesi, becoming associated with the London Group and the Euston Road School.
"Under the influence of the Surrealists, Hazel's paintings after the 1930's became freer, though her work was far more whimsical and humorous than many artists more closely associated with the movement.
[19] She took brief art lessons from her sister Peggy's one-time husband Max Ernst and much later attended several summer schools taught by muralist and renowned teacher Xavier Gonzalez.
[16] In her life in the United States and abroad, McKinley met many prominent artists of the Paris, London, and New York art scenes.
"[20] McKinley continued to paint, and ran a small gallery of her own in the late 1950s and early 1960s in West Cornwall, Connecticut.
[2] One show at her gallery featured the works of British and Irish painters including Rowland Suddaby, Frank Beteson, Tom Nisbett, and Patrick Swift.
Another featured work was a surrealistic water color portrait of McKinley by London artist Mervyn Peake.
In 1943 McKinley was selected to exhibit a painting in Peggy's infamous show '31 Women' in her New York gallery Art of This Century.
[30] In 1998 after her death, one of her paintings was exhibited in Peggy Guggenheim's Venice home/museum the Palazzo Venier dei Leioni.
While living in Europe in the 1960s, McKinley was mentioned in a Walter Winchell column as she gathered American theater people to help Italian flood survivors and also donated paintings for the effort.