Born in Honolulu, she studied art at Stanford University, Marguerite Blasingame returned to Hawaii where she she achieve recognition as she established herself as sculptor of figural works, many of them bas reliefs in wood and stone. Her depictions were usually sinuous in contour with simplified anatomy. While traveling in Mexico in the late 1930's Marguerite befriended Diego Rivera and over 10 years of friendship Marguerite took on some of Rivera's muralist styles. During the 1930s and 1940s, she worked for the WPA as an artist and filled commissions for architectural panels, some of them very large in size. She was a member of the Hawaiian Mural Guild, and plied her trade in in Hawaii including large murals at the Honolulu Academy of the Arts, Library of Hawaii, and Ala Moana Park. She is the author of a book titled "A Course in Art Appreciation for the Adult Layman," Stanford University Press. Along with Isami Doi, Madge Tennent, and others, Marguerite founded the Hawaiian Mural Arts Guild in 1934. She was among the artists in Hawaii who, before World War II, experimented with decorative pattern using natural forms, especially tropical foliage and flowers and used stylized imagery of Hawaiian figures in work that mirrored the similarly romanticized and exoticized Art Deco imagery depicting the people of French colonial Polynesia and South East Asia. During the 1930s and 1940s, she was a WPA artist and filled many commissions for architectural panels, some of them very large in size. The Honolulu Academy of Arts is among the public collections holding her works, and her sculptures in public places include an (untitled) 1935 marble sculpture in Ala Moana Park, Honolulu, and a 1939 bas relief at the entry to the Board of Water Supply building. She is the author of a book titled "A Course in Art Appreciation for the Adult Layman," Stanford University Press. Sources include: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940" Gordon Chang, Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 in.com huffingtonpost.com Honolulu.gov Marguerite Blasingame is credited with producing paintings and bas-relief panels, but her husband has erroneously received credit for many of the pieces attributed to Marguerite. These sculptures and paintings by Frank Blasingame are easily distinguishd from Marguerite's work. The Sculptures are simple and blocky, emulating her style but never duplicating it. Frank's symbolist paintings are dreamy yet not well defined and have no semblance to the work of Marguerite. Frank may have been influenced by Marguerite's success in her Hawaiian imagery and after they divorced, he exhibited Hawaiian works in New York as early as 1936. After the New York Exhibit, he stayed in New York for another 12 years teaching in New York and New Jersey. (Frank Blasingame, from an exhibition brochure for Scottsdale Symphony Orchestra, c. 1980). Frank's work is characterized by primitive symbolist imagery in dreamy tropical colors and does not resemble Marguerite's typical muralist style.