Multifaceted journalist and editor, Maxine Cushing Gray (1909-1987), was a passionate advocate for the arts in the Pacific Northwest. Born in Massachusetts, Maxine Cushing attended Stanford University, where she pursued her many interests, which included writing and the performing arts. After graduating from Stanford in 1930, she joined a San Francisco theater company for a year to learn stage lighting techniques firsthand. During the 1930s, Cushing studied modern dance at Bennington and other venues. She brought her knowledge back to the Bay Area, where she wrote performing arts reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for other local newspapers. Cushing also organized her own small dance company in San Francisco. In 1939, she worked as a publicist for Hurok Attractions, Inc., traveling across the country with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She settled in Seattle, Washington in the early 1940s, following her marriage in 1940 to engineer Stanley Gray (a Montana resident whom she had met during her travels). In short order, Maxine Cushing Gray, became a press agent for the Seattle Symphony and a prominent fixture on the Seattle arts scene. She served as the music critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (1951-1953), was arts editor for the Argus (1954-1974) and tirelessly promoted the arts of the region in many national publications. In 1975, she began publishing and editing her own newsletter, Northwest Arts, which she continued to produce until her death. An outspoken believer in excellence in the arts, as well as in the need for their public funding, Gray also took strong positions against discrimination, especially the treatment of the indigenous people of the Northwest. Having studied modern dance herself, the subject remained a special focus of hers throughout her life.
From the description of Maxine Cushing Gray scrapbooks, 1919-1964 (bulk 1951-1961). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 277047363
