Paintings and Drawings by Marjorie Eaton, February 20-March 19, 1932

Marjorie Eaton was born on February 5, 1901 in Oakland, California and raised in Palo Alto, California. She graduated in 1920 from the Katherine Delmar Burke School and then studied design at the Art Institute of Boston. She attended the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco where she studied under E. Spencer Macky and Lee Randolph.

In 1925, Eaton's stepmother, Edith Cox Eaton, purchased the historic Palo Alto house of Juana Briones de Miranda and it became a celebrated art colony and family home up until its destruction in 2015. Artist Lucretia Van Horn and sculptor Louise Nevelson spent significant periods of time there, as did Marjorie. In 1939, Marjorie designed and built her own adobe near the Briones house working closely with renowned architect Gregory Ain. Marjorie Eaton had taken painting classes with Hans Hofmann at the Art Students League of New York and afterwards shared a studio with Louise Nevelson whom she met at the League. Marjorie and Louise lived downstairs from Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and the four became close friends and fellow artists.

In 1926 she traveled to Florence, Italy to study Old Masters and to attend the Royal Academia. She went to Paris, France in 1927 where she studied under Andre L’Hote. Upon returning to the United States, she dedicated herself to studying French and German Moderns under Madame Galka E. Scheyer, founder of the Blue Four group (who exhibited at the Legion of Honor in 1931.) She became a participating member of both the San Francisco Women Artists and the San Francisco Art Association.

From 1928 to 1932 she visited the Taos, New Mexico art colony. In addition, for a time she was the only white woman permitted to live on the Taos Native American Reservation. She also visited Mexico from 1933 to 1935, where she lived with and worked with Diego Rivera on locations in northern Mexico.

Despite these experiences, she found it impossible to make a living as a woman artist, so she gave up painting entirely and turned to acting. Eaton appeared both in film and on stage, performing in a number of Broadway plays. She made her (uncredited) film debut in Anna and the King of Siam in 1946. She had several roles throughout the 1960s, but her most famous role came in 1979 at age 78. Eaton filmed scenes for The Empire Strikes Back, the second Star Wars film where she portrayed Emperor Palpatine under heavy makeup, with superimposed chimpanzee eyes and a voice dubbed over by Clive Revill. While Revill received on-screen credit, Eaton did not, and they were both replaced by Ian McDiarmid for the 2004 DVD release. As nobody received on-screen credit for playing the Emperor other than voice actor Clive Revill, the identity of the actor was initially unclear. As a result, Eaton's role in the film was unconfirmed until 2016.

In March 1986, she suffered a stroke. She died at her childhood home in Palo Alto on April 21, 1986.

Sources:
Artist biography. Paintings and Drawings by Marjorie Eaton, February 20-March 19, 1932 Legion of Honor Exhibition Records, LH-ER. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Archives.
Wikipedia contributors, ""Marjorie Eaton,"" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marjorie_Eaton&oldid=1084630153 (accessed May 26, 2022).