Walter Cumming, an award-winning staff artist and illustrator for the Atlanta Journal-

Constitution for 28 years, will exhibit his latest paintings at Washington & Lee 

University’s Huntley Hall from September 25th – November 30th, 2009. The watercolor 

and pastel paintings are scenes from a recent tour he took on bicycle in northern Spain 

and southern France.

Cumming, a Georgia native, studied illustration at Rhode Island School of Design. Last 

year, before voluntarily leaving the Atlanta newspapers, he won “Best of Cox” in the 

Portfolio for Illustration category and first place for illustration from the Society of 

Newspaper Design. His first solo exhibit in his new career as an independent artist was 

“Northern Light, Southern Eye,” a series of recent paintings from Nova Scotia and 

Quebec, displayed at Alliance Française d’Atlanta January 22nd  – February 28th,2009.

In addition to being an illustrator and artist, Cumming is an experienced international 

adventure-traveler and outdoorsman. In the 1970s, after a year of hitchhiking and 

climbing the mountains of the West as a student with the National Outdoor Leadership 

School (NOLS), he received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of 

Wyoming. 

He lives in rural North Georgia and begins most days with his Alaskan Malamute sled 

dog in a two-hour run. He has run 10 Boston Marathons with a best time of 2 hours and 

34 minutes.

Cumming has also climbed Wyoming’s Grand Teton in winter, the Jungfrau in 

Switzerland, bicycled solo across France, and canoed hundreds of river miles in the 

American west, southeast and Quebec. 

In addition to his 2008 first-place illustration awards, Cumming has received other first 

place prizes in art and illustration from Cox Newspapers, the Georgia Associated Press 

and the Georgia Press Association.

The exhibit at Washington &Lee University’s Williams School Art Galleries is 

titled “Camino de Santiago: New Paintings from Spain and France.” He will also be 

exhibiting paintings from Canada and select works, in the originals, from the Atlanta 

Journal-Constitution. The exhibit is free to the public and most of the paintings are for 

sale.

For more examples of Cumming's paintings, please visit www.waltercumming.com