Born in Honolulu and trained at Stanford University in California, Marguerite Blasingame returned to Hawaii where she became an established sculptor of figural works, many of them bas reliefs in wood and stone. Her depictions were usually sinuous in contour with simplified anatomy. While traveling in Mexico in the late 1930's Marguerite befriended Diego Rivera and over 10 years of friendship Marguerite took on some of Rivera's muralist styles. During the 1930s and 1940s, she was a WPA artist and filled many commissions for architectural panels, some of them very large in size. She was a member of the Hawaiian Mural Guild. Her work is in many locations in Hawaii including the Honolulu Academy, Library of Hawaii and Moana Park. She is the author of a book titled "A Course in Art Appreciation for the Adult Layman," Stanford University Press. 

Along with Isami Doi, Madge Tennent, and others, Marguerite founded the Hawaiian Mural Arts Guild in 1934. She was among the artists in Hawaii who, before World War II, experimented with decorative pattern using natural forms, especially tropical foliage and flowers and used stylized imagery of Hawaiian figures in work that mirrored the similarly romanticized and exoticized Art Deco imagery depicting the people of French colonial Polynesia and South East Asia. During the 1930s and 1940s, she was a WPA artist and filled many commissions for architectural panels, some of them very large in size. The Honolulu Academy of Arts is among the public collections holding her works, and her sculptures in public places include an (untitled) 1935 marble sculpture in Ala Moana Park, Honolulu, and a 1939 bas relief at the entry to the Board of Water Supply building. She is the author of a book titled "A Course in Art Appreciation for the Adult Layman," Stanford University Press. Sources include: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940" Gordon Chang, Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 in.com huffingtonpost.com Honolulu.gov

Marguerite Blasingame is credited with producing paintings and bas-relief panels, but her husband seems to have taken credit - rightfully or wrongfully - for many of the pieces attributed to Marguerite. I have also heard that the artists collaborated on the works attributed to one or the other. Her works have been confused with those of her husband, Frank M Blasingame who was born in San Francisco and attended University of Nevada and the University of California. Frank may have been influenced by Marguerite's success in her Hawaiian imagery and after they divorced, he exhibited Hawaiian works in New York as early as 1936 After the New York Exhibit, he stayed in New York for another 12 years teaching in New York and New Jersey. (Frank Blasingame, from an exhibition brochure for Scottsdale Symphony Orchestra, c. 1980).  Frank's work is characterized by primitive symbolist imagery in dreamy tropical colors and does not resemble Marguerite's typical muralist style.