Yvonne Twining Humber

Yvonne Twining Humber (December 5, 1907 – May 13, 2004) was an American artist. She was born in New York City in 1907, and was influenced by Impressionist and Regionalist painters through her education at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League, then went on to paint cityscapes of Boston and New York through the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. After marrying a businessman from Washington, Humber relocated to Seattle, where she became known for her hard-edge depictions of the Northwest natural landscape, and as a member of the Women Painters of Washington. During her lifetime, her work was exhibited in major national museums and galleries, and is included in the collections of the Seattle Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Bellevue Arts Museum,

Early life Yvonne Twining was born in New York City on December 5, 1907 to Harry E. Twining, an amateur watercolorist and textile manufacturer, and Emma Estelle Potts Twining. Her mother performed in the Paris Opera under the pseudonym Madame d'Egremont. After her birth, the Twining family lived in Montreal briefly before moving to England. After her father died from pneumonia while serving in France during World War I, Humber and her mother relocated to Iowa, then Montreal, before settling in South Egremont, Massachusetts, her mother's hometown, in 1923.

Education Humber attended a Catholic girls' school while living in Iowa. After moving to South Egremont, she befriended Impressionist painters Charles and Katherine Almond Hulbert, and received her first painting instruction from them.

In 1925, Humber moved to New York City to study at the National Academy of Design, and beginning in 1928, took concurrent classes at the Art Students League, where she began to develop a Regionalist painting style. While in New York, she stayed at the Three Arts Club, a residence on the Upper West Side for single female artists. From 1930 to 1932, Humber also studied under Charles Webster Hawthorne at his informal school in Provincetown. Because Humber supported herself and her mother, she could not afford to rent a studio, and often painted in situ, using public transportation to move around the city with her easel and paints. In the 1930s and 1940s, her work was shown at the Boston Project galleries, the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, the Boston Museum of Modern Art, and the New York World's Fair.

Personal life While living in the Berkshires, she was introduced to Irving Humber, a Viennese pianist and wholesaler, and married him after two weeks, on December 5, 1943.

Humber died on May 13, 2004 at the age of 96 in Redmond, Washington.