Bringing the Art to You Dusti Bongé, #14, 1952, oil on canvas, 30” x 24" Betty Parsons, Untitled, c. 1952, oil on canvas, 22" x 18" Week #41 Two Works by Two Friends This week we are coming to you from New York as the fabulous exhibit Kinship: Dusti Bongé and Betty Parsons opens at Hollis Taggart in two days. The exhibit will present works by both Dusti Bongé and Betty Parsons, both of whom were fiercely independent 20th century women artists, and who became good and lifelong friends once they first met in New York in 1945. Herewith two works, one from Dusti and one from Betty, both from around 1952. At the time Dusti produced some of her last surrealist works as she was transitioning into full abstraction. Betty was creating her own unique abstract works with seemingly pictographic shapes floating in fields of color. These paintings show that Dusti and Betty, while immersed in their contemporary art world, were following their own trajectory as they forged their respective artistic careers. They did not succumb to fads or market pressure. They also both preferred a certain degree of solitude and isolation when painting. Hence, Betty Parsons closed her gallery every summer so she could spend time at her home on Long Island to focus on her art. Meanwhile, Dusti Bongé, although traveling back and forth to New York and New Orleans on a regular basis, nonetheless decided to stay in Biloxi to paint in her studio there. They corresponded regularly, traveled together, and stayed friends right up until Betty’s passing in 1982. This was the same year that Dusti got to reminisce about her long career, which would go on for almost another decade, when she published her book Dusti Bongé: The Life of an Artist and was the subject of a Mississippi Public Broadcasting (PBS) documentary. If you happen to be in New York during this time by all means go see this exhibit! Please note: We will be open for limited hours from Tuesday October 11 through Saturday October 15, 2022. Our hours will be 12:00pm - 4:00pm on those days. Thank you and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. Kinship: Dusti Bongé and Betty Parsons at Hollis Taggart Ocober 13, 2022 - November 12, 2022 And if you missed it last week, this article appeared in Garden & Gun Mississippi’s Modernist Painter Who Thought New York Had Nothing on Biloxi https://gardenandgun.com/articles/dusti-bonge/ Have you seen this work? Do you or someone you know have this work in their collection? If so, we would love to hear from you. We are continually working to maintain as complete a record as possible, and to determine the location of all of Dusti Bongé's work. If you have information on this, or other works, you can contact us at
[email protected] We appreciate receiving any referrals to the existence and whereabouts of artworks by Dusti Bongé. Thank you. You can now view some of these works on our website: https://www.dustibonge.org/missing-works.html Available in our store: The definitive volume on artist Dusti Bongé, by J. Richard Gruber Dusti Bongé, Art and Life: Biloxi, New Orleans, New York Hard bound, 12” x 9”, 350 pages, over 500 color and b&w illustrations Limited edition lithographs of two original Dusti Bongé drawings. Shrimp Boats & Factories, Back Bay Biloxi I and Shrimp Boats & Factories, Back Bay Biloxi II 12” x 16” drawing, 15” x 22” paper size https://www.dustibonge.org/store.html support us Our mission: to promote the artistic legacy of Dusti Bongé (1903-1993)
