ABOUT MARJORIE
Marjorie Zimmer was born on a ranch in the heart of southern Utah’s red rock country as the
youngest of five children in a combative Mormon family. Art has been her passion and refuge since
childhood. In high school she was named school artist. Soon after graduating, in pursuit of an
artist’s career, she moved to New York City. She lived in Greenwich Village, waited tables to
support herself, and painted every spare minute she had, filling her small apartment with canvas
after canvas. Then, after two short but wonderful years as a New York artist, the dark angels of her
family summoned her home to Salt Lake, persuading her that her real purpose in life was to care for
parents who were still young enough to care for themselves. Heartbroken, she obeyed, destroying all
her canvases, leaving her dream behind. For the next twenty years, while she dealt with the
necessities of putting another life together, working full time, getting married, and raising two young
children, the unrelenting message of her family was to put her parents first. She saw her husband
through a cancer his doctors said was terminal. She proved them wrong. But after twenty years,
exhausted, she realized she needed to escape the grip of her birth family to save herself. She moved
her young family east to New Jersey. Tragedy followed them from Utah. Soon after settling in, her
husband’s cancer returned, and this time took his life and left two young children fatherless, entirely
in their mother’s hands. This time the dark angels called her a traitor and turned their backs on her.
And so she raised her children alone. But slowly, in rare free moments, she started to look again for
her dream. She had come back east to find it. And she prevailed. Today, with her son and daughter
grown, her dream and her gift are back full force, in paintings that are rich, bold, joyous, emotionally
profound, always deeply human.
Artwork previously exhibited in:
Sussex county arts and heritage council May 2023
Spring fest March 2023
New Beginnings May 2023
ArtExpo Basel 2.0. June 2023
