Robert H. Cumming

Cumming studied at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of California, Los Angeles and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is conceptual art, fine-art photography and art movement. Employment is recorded with University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and University of California, Los Angeles. Work by Robert H. Cumming is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship.

• Name — Robert Cumming • Born — October 7, 1943 • Died — December 16, 2021 (aged 78) • Place of death — Desert Hot Springs, CA • Education — Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, BFA; University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, MFA • Known for — Photography, Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking • Movement — Conceptualism • Website — https: robertcummingartist.com • Awards — National Endowment for the Arts grants (1973, 1974, 1983) Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, (1980-81) • Birthplace — Worcester, MA

Cumming grew up just outside of Boston, MA. He earned a BFA in 1965 from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and an MFA in 1967 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• Illustration — Untitled watercolor on paper by Robert H. Cumming, 1986 His first teaching position was at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where he was involved with mail art, an early conceptual art movement that conferred art status on items sent through the postal system. In 1970, Cumming moved to southern California to lecture on photography, and in 1974, he started teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1978, Cumming moved back to New England, where he continued to teach and make art.

• Robert Cumming: The Secret Life of Objects, the George Eastman Museum and the California Museum of Photography, UC Riverside, 2019–2020.

• Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960, Museum of Modern Art, NY, July 26 - October 2, 1978. • Art by Telephone, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, November 1 - December 14, 1969. • 9 Artists/9 Urban Spaces, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, September 1 - October 5, 1970. • Minor White, Robert Heinecken, Robert Cumming: Photograph as Metaphor, Photograph as Object, Photograph as Document of Concept, California State University, Long Beach, October 8 - November 12, 1973. • Picture Puzzles, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, August 12 - November 16, 1975. • Whitney Biennial 1977: Contemporary American Art, February 19-April 3, 1977.

Cumming is represented in the permanent collections of various major art museums, including: • The Milwaukee Art Museum • The Museum of Modern Art, New York • The Baltimore Museum of Art • The Art Institute of Chicago • The Dallas Museum of Art • The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston • The Denver Art Museum • The George Eastman Museum, Rochester • The Minneapolis Institute of Arts • The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York • The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis • The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art • The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles • The Los Angeles County Museum of Art • Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House (formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu).

Cumming died on December 16, 2021, at the age of 78 from complications of Parkinson’s disease.