Marvin Cone

Cone attended college and traveled to Paris with his contemporary and high-school friend, Grant Wood.

Some of his sketches can also been found in the permanent collection of the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art in Cedar Falls.

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 now multi-state unit wears to this day.

He considered commercial art, but chose instead to accept a position teaching French at Coe College for the 1919–1920 academic year.

The visit proved influential, resulting in a stunning series of impressionistic views of picturesque cityscapes and landscapes, Paris streets and gardens, and the French countryside.

Cone lived all his 74 years in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he married, raised a family, and for more than four decades taught art at Coe College.

[4] Marvin Cone sought to evoke his inner vision of nature rather than to create a realistic depiction of the rural landscape.