Painter, printmaker, and illustrator Marilyn Hormel was born Marilyn Jean Miller on November 12, 1925, in San Francisco, CA. She went to the California School of Fine Arts (later the San Francisco Art Institute; now closed) on a scholarship, studying under Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, and Ansel Adams, and was a part of the San Francsico Abstract Expressionist movement. She received various awards and honors for her work, including another scholarship allowing her to travel to New York to study at the Art Students League. She moved there in the early 1950s where she met fellow art student Al Hormel, who she married in 1952. She continued to use Miller as her professional name.

In 1954 American Artist magazine featured her work on its December cover and labeled her "a new start in the illustration field" in the article on her work. Thereafter, she received commissions for illustrations by such publications as The Reporter, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Gourmet Magazine, scholastic books, and numerous children's books. In the meantime, she continued to pusrue fine art and had a painting at the United Nations. 

Marilyn Jean Miller Hormel died on April 22, 2015, in Weston, Connecticut. 

Information for this biography was sourced from the Weston Forum, May 14, 2015