The Dusti Bongé Art Foundation
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The Dusti Bongé Art Foundation (DBAF) was established in 1995 in Biloxi, Mississippi, when a group of devotees of the artist Dusti Bongé formed an organization to honor and promote her extensive and impressive oeuvre. The DBAF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness of, and access to, the beautiful collection of works Bongé left as her legacy.
Since its inception, the foundation has been engaged in cataloguing, appraising, and conserving the artwork. It has placed several significant works with major regional institutions, so they may share them with the public. And through the years, The DBAF has also arranged various exhibitions, and has a continually rotating selection of works up at its gallery. Dusti Bongé (1903-1993), neé Eunice Lyle Swetman, was an Abstract Expressionist painter who lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, and worked from the 1930s through the early 1990s. She is considered Mississippi's first Abstract Expressionist painter and its first Modernist artist. Bongé had a prolific artistic career, initially working in a modern style influenced by Cubism, which evolved into her experimentations with Surrealism and culminated in her Abstract Expressionist work by the 1950s. At this point Bongé became active in the post-war art scene which was centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York (one of the most prestigious galleries in the city at that time). This was the era of Abstract Expressionism. Globally, Abstract Expressionism has become widely admired as the most significant art movement in American art history. Started in New York in the 1940s and 1950s by painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, the movement has earned its place in the canons of major worldwide art movements. It was also the art form that Bongé found to be her best artistic outlet as her work evolved in the 1950s. As such, she became a major player in this group of prominent artists, exhibiting alongside them and counting many of them as her friends. Indeed, some became her close friends, such as Mark Rothko and Theodoros Stamos. Bongé exhibited in the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York from the 1940s through the 1970s. Parsons mounted several solo exhibitions of Bongé’s work, which were critically very well received. However, over the years Dusti Bongé’s work has been insufficiently celebrated for its important contribution to Abstract Expressionism. Thus, compared to some of her world famous AbEx friends and peers, her extensive oeuvre had not received the national recognition it merits. The DBAF’s aim is to rectify this situation and re-introduce the world to this extraordinary abstract painter. Hence our stated mission. The DBAF believes that Dusti Bongé should be recognized for her exemplary contributions to the most important 20th Century American Art movement and thus that she should be included in the canons of major Abstract Expressionist painters. We invite you to join the ever-growing group of Dusti Bongé admirers. |
OUR MISSION:
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Dusti Bongé at her palette in the studio, 1957. Photo by Lyle Bongé. Courtesy of Bongé Family Archives.
Exhibition & Conservation |
Scholarship & Education |
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The DBAF’s ongoing efforts include cataloging and conserving the collection of Dusti Bongé’s work, while promoting public awareness about the artist's life and work, by way of exhibitions, interviews, social media, and other means. We are especially dedicated to promoting Bongé’s work, not only within Mississippi, but nationally and internationally.
We have continually worked on getting important paintings conserved, ensuring that they are in stable condition, cleaned, and restored, so that they may be shared with the public long into the future. To date we have conserved over 40 paintings. Our conservation efforts, in turn, have recently allowed us to mount a major retrospective exhibition of Dusti Bongé’s work in New Orleans, in an important Southern Institution. The planning and preparation of this exhibition took many years and the resulting show is absolutely stunning. At the DBAF gallery we rotate our exhibits several times a year in order to show as much of her work as possible. We invite you to visit us whenever you are on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. |
Of course, the Foundation also places a high priority on scholarship and on arts education & appreciation for all ages. In fact, we have just published a major academic monograph of Dusti Bongé’s work, which offers an in-depth look at her life and art. Meanwhile, we continue with our ongoing research in compiling detailed records for a catalogue raisonnée.
At our gallery, in Biloxi, we always have a small selection of Bongé’s works on display, so that the public has continual access to her art. The works are arranged in a manner that illustrates the development of her artistic style. Art and/or Art Appreciation teachers often bring their students. Our small exhibits in the gallery show the evolution of her oeuvre over the course of her fifty-plus year career as an artist, allowing patrons to follow her path from her early representational works, to her surrealist explorations, and on to her Abstract Expressionist masterpieces. The Foundation has also started an annual High-school scholarship program, for seniors who are intending to study art or a related field. The scholarship goes toward tuition and/or supplies at the student's college. |
