Eunice Cashion MacLennan [variant spelling McLennan] (1886-1966) Eunice Cashion was born in 1886 in Marquand, Missouri. As a child she liked to sketch and draw and said she painted “apples and dogs and even a house when I got ambitious.” When she was still in high school, her formal art training began in St. Louis under Frederick Oakes Sylvester, the poet-painter of the Mississippi. She studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Art at Washington University from 1905 to 1906, and from 1908 to 1913, was head of the Art Department at Smith Academy in St. Louis. In 1914 Eunice moved to California and taught art in the Los Angeles public schools. She continued her teaching career in Santa Barbara where she taught at the State College from 1919 to 1922. She then continued her own studies at Pratt Institute and the Chicago Art Institute, before spending a year in Paris at the Académie Julian and the Grand-Chaumière. It was not until 1928 that she began exhibiting professionally. During World War II MacLennan prepared production illustrations for an aircraft company. She found that this very exacting task required enormous discipline. Eunice and her husband John William MacLennan, a history professor, remained in Santa Barbara in a home/studio they built in Montecito until they moved to Carmel in 1948. Between 1930 and 1960 MacLennan’s work was exhibited widely throughout the United States, including the Argent Galleries in New York; Baltimore Galleries, Los Angeles; and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco. She participated in the prestigious Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939. She won numerous awards throughout her career. Not only was her work purchased by the State of California for one of the government buildings in Sacramento, but also her painting Gray Graves was acquired by a graduating class of Santa Barbara State College as a farewell gift to the school. Although her subject matter varied from landscapes, portraits, and lithography, MacLennan is known primarily for her large paintings of animals and birds. She was a life-long member of the Humane Society and the Animal Protection League. She always had cats living at her home and studio. It was initially from drawing and painting her pets that she developed her interest in painting the wildlife of California. Bird and animal refuges became a primary source of inspiration for her, particularly the Feather Hill Ranch in Santa Barbara. She also traveled to Sequoia and Yosemite to sketch deer. After moving to Carmel and settling into a house on the northwest corner of Camino Real and 13th Street, MacLennan became active in the Carmel art scene. She juried into the Carmel Art Association and participated in both group and solo shows. She also lectured on art and served as an art reviewer and columnist for the Carmel Pine Cone and Monterey Peninsula Herald. Her other affiliations include the California Watercolor Society, Santa Barbara Art Association, and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Painting daily, she always tried to find new approaches to her work. She was especially fascinated with the cormorants and gulls that populated Monterey’s fishing wharfs. Eunice and John William moved to Carmel Valley in 1963. When he died one year later, MacLennan lived only two more years, having lost her will to continue without him. Her death came on June 24, 1966.