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Urania Prince Cummings was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands in 1889. She is documented as being an early West Indian pioneer settler in San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area. She was an artist,painter, ceramist, lecturer, poetress, civic leader, and educator for decades.

Before studying art and becoming an artist Cummings raised her three children and grandchildren.

Early life
Cummings grew up on a farm in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. She was a student at Nisky School in Saint Thomas. She returned to Nisky 50 years later, and gave a one-woman show in the classroom where she was scolded for drawing, and not studying.

One of Cummings childhood memories in school is reciting the poem by George Pope Morris called "The Woodsman Spare That Tree".

Cummings left the Virgin Islands in 1910. She went to Santo Domingo, and then to Puerto Rico. She worked as a nurse and domestic.

In 1918, Cummings migrated to New York City.

In 1922, she moved to San Francisco, California.

While in California, Cummings attended United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) meetings. The (UNIA) was founded by Marcus Garvey.

Education
Cummings attended St Nisky School in the Virgin Islands. She has said in interviews that she would be sketching at times and not doing her studies and would be scolded. Later in life many decades later she returned and held an exhibit in the same classroom where she was scolded as a child.

Cummings attended Adult Education School in Berkeley, California. Where she studied painting and ceramics.

She attended Arts School in Berkeley, California for eleven years.

Career
In 1921, Cummings began studying the violin.

Cummings studied art, public speaking, and started painting after raising her children at the age of 65.

Cummings had her first exhibition in 1958.

In 1958, won second prize for hand made table cloth at Plesanton Fair in California.

It is noted that in a 1972, newspaper article in 'The Sun Reporter' Urania was the oldest practicing Black painter.

In a 1972, Cummings participated in an exhibition titled "Black Contributors" at the Rainbow Sign in Berkeley, California. Betye Saar was a part of this exhibition where she presented her art assemblage, "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima." Other artists that were part of this exhibition was Emory Douglas, Cleveland Bellow, Herman Kofi Bailey, Leslie Kenneth Price, and others. The exhibition was curated by Evangeline Montgomery, also known as EJ Montgomery.

February 10, 1974, Cummings did a solo show at the Rainbow Sign. She exhibited 31 oil paintings.

January 20, 1975, at the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., Urania Cummings granddaughter Sharelle Cummings hosted an exhibit of four of her paintings. In 1981, she had an exhibition at the Oakland Museum. The exhibition was titled "Be all you can be". The exhibition was from January 24 to March 8, 1981.

Cummings has presented her art work at the San Francisco and Berkeley, California art festivals.

In 1999, Urania Cummings work was part of "One Hundred Years of Artists" exhibit in Berkeley, California.

Her paintings depict daily life that she experienced growing up in St Thomas, Virgin Islands; cooking, eating, washing under palm trees. She did ceramics and crocheted.

Cummings acrylic painting Grandmother's Rocking Chair was gifted to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Grandmother's Rocking Chair

Exhibitions-Provenances

 * "One Hundred Years of Arts in the Berkeley Community"


 * Paintings in the Main Library in St Thomas, Virgin Islands


 * Oakland Art Museum


 * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art


 * Berkeley Historical Society Museum


 * The office of Governor Edmund G Brown, Jr.


 * Sacramento State Fair


 * Chabot College


 * Berkeley Arts Festival


 * South Berkeley Community Church


 * Allen Temple Baptist Church, Oakland, California


 * The Rainbow Sign in Berkeley, California

Quotes
Berkeley used to be like a big family," Mrs. Cummings recalled. "Everybody seemed to get along nicely together because I think everybody owned something and we—and we had pride in what we owned.

Memberships

 * California State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs


 * African Cultural Society of San Francisco (teacher-painting and crafts)
 * Berkeley Coop Art Association in Berkeley


 * African American Historical and Cultural Society


 * Arts West Association in Berkeley