[1] Cummings was born in Thames, a small town in the North Island of New Zealand, in 1891.

There, Matthew worked in residential constructions, and built a number of large timber houses in the suburbs of Ponsonby and Herne Bay.

[1] When Cummings was 11, she received a scholarship to attend Elam School of Fine Arts.

[2] Her painting Portrait of a Maori Woman is in the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

[3] In 2024 a portrait of a Māori man with a tā moko was sold in the United Kingdom to a New Zealand buyer for NZ$3790.