Linda Cromer

Linda Barnes Cromer finally set down her paint brushes in Pullman, WA on July 22, 2026. She was born July 8, 1941 to Dr. Charles A and Marjorie Matthews Barnes, in Boston where her father was doing a medical residency. When he was drafted in 1942, she moved with her mother and siblings to live with her grandparents, Dr. R J and Ruth Matthews in Clarinda, Iowa.

Linda grew up in Clarinda and graduated from Clarinda High School in 1959. She then studied at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, where she received her degree in fine arts. She followed up with a M.F.A. from the University of Arizona in Tucson. Linda was married briefly to David Cromer; the marriage ended in divorce, but she continued to use Cromer as her last name.

While in Arizona and during time she spent in Mexico, Linda later said that she learned to use vivid and brilliant color in her paintings. She spent a year in Costa Rica, where she had an exhibit of her paintings at the University.

About 1972, Linda moved to New York City, where she lived in a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village. For years, she had a day job and painted in her spare time. Eventually she tried selling her paintings at the outdoor art show at NYC’s Washington Square. By then, she had switched from oil painting to watercolors and she was noted for her vivid color and the intricate designs she created with fabric and flowers. Eventually she was able to quit her job and support herself entirely from her paintings sold at numerous outdoor art shows in NYC, Vermont, and Connecticut.

In 2005, she was featured in an article in American Artist Watercolor magazine. The article was entitled “The Fun is in the Challenge,” which described how she composed “complex still-life arrangements to challenge herself and her audience.”

The pandemic in 2020 and 21 was not kind to Linda who was isolated in her small apartment. After the loss of vision in one eye, she was no longer painting and exhibiting. Later in 2021, her niece, Susan Luttrell, persuaded her it was time to leave the city. She moved first to Bellingham, WA, then to Moscow, ID, and finally to a senior apartment in Pullman, WA.

Linda maintained contact through the years with a wide circle of friends, many from her high school and college days. Her several nieces and nephews always looked forward to the imaginative gifts Aunt Linda would send for birthdays and Christmas, and, in later years, they often took the opportunity to visit her in New York, where she was an excellent hostess.

Linda was preceded in death by her parents, her brother-in-law, Rich Levengood, and her dear friend, Don Girardi. She is survived by her sister, Jan Levengood, Moscow, ID, her brother, Bruce Barnes (Dianne), Pendleton, OR, her half-brother, Rev. Chuck Barnes (Nancy), Babbitt, MN., and numerous nieces and nephews.