Marguerite Zorach (née Thompson; September 25, 1887 – June 27, 1968) was an American Fauvist painter, textile artist, and graphic designer, and was an early exponent of modernism in America.

[2]: 14  Her father, a lawyer for Napa Valley vineyards, and mother were descended from New England seafarers and Pennsylvania Quakers.

[3][2]: 58 While at Stanford, Thompson continued to show aptitude for art, and rather than completing her degree, she traveled to France at the invitation of her aunt, Harriet Adelaide Harris.

Harris then attempted to have Thompson enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, to study under the academic painter Francis Auburtin.

Thompson had no interest in the formulas of academic painting and instead she chose to attend the Post-Impressionist school Académie de La Palette, where she studied under John Duncan Fergusson and Jacques-Emile Blanche.

[6] At the Académie de La Palette, she first met her future husband and artistic collaborator, William Zorach.

William admired her passionate individuality, and he said of her modernist Fauvist artwork "I just couldn't understand why such a nice girl would paint such wild pictures.

They visited Jerusalem, Egypt, India, Burma, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Hawaii.

Impressed with the foreign places she had seen and eager to write about her experiences, she sent articles to her childhood newspaper, the Fresno Morning Republican.

[6] This trip would also have a huge effect on her art, influencing her to paint even more abstractly than she had in the past, sometimes even completely flat.

Ultimately, her parents' disapproval of her artistic pursuits would end her time there and cause her to destroy a large amount of her work.

Eventually, the pair settled in Greenwich Village and fondly called their house the "Post-Impressionist" studio.

It became a meeting place of sorts, reminiscent of small salons in Paris for artists to collaborate and share ideas.

[16] There are fourteen works by Zorach, including paintings, linocuts, and textile pieces in the collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine.

[17] The Monticello, Indiana post office contains her 1942 Section of Fine Arts mural entitled Hay Making.