2024

Paul Bongé, Infrared: The Realm of Invisible Light
April 30, 2024 - September 3. 2024

Recent photography by Paul Bongé, grandson of Dusti Bongé. 

Paul started his photography career at  a very early age. After devouring the images in a book of Edward Weston photographs. and discovering that Weston's sons also became photographers, Paul declared that he too would become one, just like his father Lyle Bongé. As such, he has been photographing since the 1970s.
This infrared  series  is his most recent body of work.  Revealing the invisible spectrum of the familiar world around us , infrared photography  offers a mesmerizing to see our surroundings in a whole new way.

Spotlight: Dusti Bongé
November 16, 2023–March 17, 2024
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
https://www.thewadsworth.org/explore/on-view/dusti-bonge/

Dusti Bongé (1903–1993) turned with conviction to painting in her thirties and rapidly became Mississippi’s first modernist painter. While living in her hometown of Biloxi, her work caught the attention of the respected art dealer Betty Parsons, who became a close friend and supporter. In the male-dominated art world at the time, such relationships enabled women to gain recognition as artists. Parsons’s New York City gallery represented many avant-garde artists who shaped the trajectory of modern art in America.

Southern/Modern
January 26 – April 28, 2024
Frist Art Museum
https://fristartmuseum.org/exhibition/southern-modern/​

“Southern/Modern” is the first project to survey comprehensively the rich array of paintings and works on paper created in the American South during the first half of the 20th century. Featuring more than 100 works of art drawn from public and private collections across the country, it brings together a generation’s worth of scholarship. Structured around key themes that cut across state lines it takes an inclusive view of the artists working in the region. 

2023

Dusti Bongé: 120 Years
October 28, 2023 – March 15, 2024
Dusti Bongé Art Foundation

On the occasion of the 120th  anniversary of artist Dusti Bongé, we present this show celebrating her life and work, highlighting both art and anecdotes about her, her family, and friends. There are glimpses into her early years as a young woman growing up on the coast, going on to pursue a career in acting, and meeting the love of her life. And then, there are highlights of her prolific career as an abstract artist, working in the studio and being inspired by the beauty of the coast.

Dusti Bongé: The Creative Life
July 13, 2023 – September 14, 2024
Mobile Museum of Art
https://www.mobilemuseumofart.com/exhibitions/dusti-bonge-the-creative-life/​​​​

Dusti Bongé: The Creative Life provides a look at the creative evolution of a woman who has been called Mississippi’s first true modern artist. Expanding on the success of our recent Spotlight installation, this new exhibition presents some of her early realist watercolor and mixed media compositions, four large Abstract Expressionist paintings, and an oil on masonite inspired by a trip to Mexico, all on loan from the Paul Bongé Collection. 

Spotlight: Dusti Bongé
July 13 - October 22, 2023
Montgomery Museum of Fine Art
https://mmfa.org/exhibition/spotlight-series/

The American South Consortium is a multi-year partnership of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the Columbia Museum of Art, and the Mobile Museum of Art. The Consortium created a series of exhibitions shaped by each of our collections to broaden the story of American art. The Spotlight series tells new and innovative stories while expanding the understanding of fine art and design. The installations highlight the stories behind singular objects, one from each museum.

Knowing Who We Are
April 1, 2023 - March 4, 2024
Ogden Museum of Southern Art

https://ogdenmuseum.org/exhibition/knowing-who-we-are-the-rise-of-abstraction-vernacular-art-and-photography/​​

The art of the American South has never existed in isolation. It has – since the earliest moments of the American experience – run concurrent with dominant academic art movements and popular trends, while maintaining a distinct regional identity.  Knowing Who We Are explores the rise of Abstraction, Photography and Vernacular Art.

Of the Past and Present: Estates and Contemporary Artists at Hollis Taggart
June 29, 2023 - August 25, 2023
Hollis Taggart
https://www.hollistaggart.com/exhibitions/177-of-the-past-and-present-estates-and-contemporary-artists-at-hollis-taggart​

Hollis Taggart presents  a group exhibition featuring examples of work by all of the artists and estates represented by the gallery. Of the Past and Present celebrates the growth of the gallery since its founding in 1979 and provides a rare opportunity to engage with the breadth of artists in its roster, which today encompasses both significant historic American artists as well as the cutting-edge of contemporary art. 

Southern/Modern
June 17, 2023 - December 10, 2023
Georgia Museum of Art
https://georgiamuseum.org/exhibit/southern-modern/

“Southern/Modern” is the first project to survey comprehensively the rich array of paintings and works on paper created in the American South during the first half of the 20th century. Featuring more than 100 works of art drawn from public and private collections across the country, it brings together a generation’s worth of scholarship. Structured around key themes that cut across state lines it takes an inclusive view of the artists working in the region. The exhibit is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication:
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674087/southernmodern/​

Spotlight: Dusti Bongé
March 23 - July 1, 2023
Mobile Museum of Art
https://www.mobilemuseumofart.com/exhibitions/dusti-bonge/​

Mobile Museum of Art presents Spotlight: Dusti Bongé, an exhibition presented by the American South Consortium exploring themes that speak to our nation’s shared histories and diverse regional identities.
The first of four Spotlight exhibitions, funded by a grant from the Art Bridges Foundation, opened March 23, 2023, at the Mobile Museum of Art, featuring paintings and works on paper by Mississippi’s first Modernist artist, Dusti Bongé. from Biloxi,  who exhibited her work in New York and New Orleans. 

From Provincial Status to International Prominence: American Art of the 1950s
April 20- May 20, 2023
Hollis Taggart
https://www.hollistaggart.com/exhibitions/175-from-provincial-status-to-international-prominence-american-art-of-the-1950s/

The exhibition From Provincial Status to International Prominence: American Art of the 1950s, features over 30 artists who experimented with new styles during the seismic formation of the New York School in the post-war  1950s. In the aftermath of World War II a loose group of American artists came to be known variously as Abstract Expressionists, the action painters, or the New York School. ​

Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940–70
February 9 - May 7, 2023
​Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/action-gesture-paint-women-and-global-abstraction-1940-70/

Whitechapel Gallery presents a major exhibition of 150 paintings from an overlooked generation of 81 international women artists. Reaching beyond the predominantly white, male painters whose names are synonymous with the Abstract Expressionist movement, this exhibition celebrates the practices of the numerous international women artists working with gestural abstraction in the aftermath of the Second World War

Our Own Work, Our Own Way: Ascendant Women Artists in the Johnson Collection
January 21 - May, 21, 2023
Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC
https://www.columbiamuseum.org/view/our-own-work-our-own-way-ascendant-women-artists-johnson-collection​

The Columbia Museum of Art offers the exhibition Our Own Work, Our Own Way: Ascendant Women Artists in the Johnson Collection. Presented by the Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina, the exhibition brings together 42 female artists of the 20th century who had connections to the South — including national and regional artists. 

Dusti Bongé, Lyle Bongé, Paul Bongé, Joey Rice
January 28 - May 31, 2023
​Dusti Bonge Art Foundation

Celebrating the spirit of collaboration, experimentation and inspiration among artists, we are happy to announce our next show, 
Dusti Bongé, Lyle Bongé, Paul Bongé, Joey Rice
​
The show will feature works created by each artist and some of their collaborations as well. It will showcase how each artist pursued abstraction in photographs, paintings, works on paper, and mixed media sculptures.

​Photo gallery with highlights of the exhibition

2022

Kinship: Dusti Bongé and Betty Parsons
​October 13 - November 12, 2022
Hollis Taggart, New York, NY

 Hollis Taggart presents the expansive exhibition “Kinship: Dusti Bongé and Betty Parsons” located on the first and second floor gallery space at 521 West 26th Street. 

“Kinship: Dusti Bongé and Betty Parsons” includes 35 works by Bongé, reintroducing audiences to the full arc of her career, and also features 15 works by Parsons,  The exhibition captures the significance of network and relationship- building among women within the art ecosystem at midcentury, with Parsons leveraging her own success as a gallerist to bring forward Bongé’s innovative vision and work. This is the first major showing of Bongé’s work since Hollis Taggart began representing the estate in 2021.

Photo gallery with highlights of the exhibition
​All Photos courtesy Hollis Taggart​

PRESS:

11.8.22 Artnet News
Spotlight: Dusti Bongé and Betty Parsons’s Artist-Gallerist Relationship Forms the Heart of a New Exhibition at Hollis Taggart
11.4.22 Artsy
Why Secondary Market Galleries Appeal to New and Established Collectors Alike
10.24.22 Antiques Trade Gazette 
News in Brief: Southern US artists show
10.10.22 Forbes
New York’s Top October Art Exhbitions Have A Southern Flavor​
10.5.22 Garden & Gun
Mississippi’s Modernist Painter Who Thought New York Had Nothing on Biloxi

Dallas Art Fair
​Hollis Taggart Booth G15
April 21 - April 24, 2022

Hollis Taggart 2022 Dallas Art Fair booth featured a selection of premier  Post-war and contemporary artists, including Dusti Bongé.

View of Booth G15. Photo courtesy Hollis Taggart​

Women and the Void: Abstract Expressionism on Paper
​February 16 - March 9, 2022
​Huxley-Parlour , London, UK

Women and the Void: Abstract Expressionism on Paper displays 20 works on paper by women working in abstraction between 1945 - 1970: Mary Abbott, Dusti Bongé, Jay DeFeo, Perle Fine, Anne Ryan, Alma Thomas, and Michael West.
Huxley-Parlour Gallery, founded in London in 2010, is a modern and contemporary art gallery  committed to creating a dialogue between those artists who have made an impact on recent art history, and those who are at its vanguard today.

https://huxleyparlour.com/exhibitions/women-and-the-void-abstract-expressionism-on-paper/

Dusti Bongé: Southern Exposure
​November 11, 2021 - January 8, 2022
McCormick Gallery, Chicago, IL

The McCormick Gallery presents the first solo gallery exhibition in 45 years, outside of the Southern United States, of the art of Dusti Bongé (1903-1993).  Located in Chicago’s West Loop,  the gallery  offers mid-century as well as contemporary paintings, and is known for presenting (often overlooked) post-war Abstract Expressionists.

​The McCormick Press has published a lovely, 44 page, fully illustrated catalog with an essay on her life and work to accompany this exhibition.

To view all works in Southern Exposure, please visit:
https://www.thomasmccormick.com/artists/dusti_bong_

Dusti Bongé: Joss Paper
September 24, 2021 - February 20, 2022
Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art,  Biloxi, MS

The Armory Show 2021
​Hollis Taggart Booth 331
September 9 - September 12, 2021

Hollis Taggart 2021 Armory Show booth featured a selection of premier Abstract Expressionist and Post-war artworks with an emphasis on the contribution of women artists, including Dusti Bongé.

View of Booth 331. Photo courtesy Hollis Taggart​

The Art of Joey Rice
February 27, 2021 - July 24, 2021
Dusti Bongé Art Foundation

Exhibition curated by Bill Myers & Carol Leake.

​Piercing the Inner Wall: ​The Art of Dusti Bongé
​February 26, 2021 - July 11,  2021
Mississippi Museum of Art

 ​Mississippi Museum of Art 
​This retrospective exhibition debuted at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans in 2019,

https://www.msmuseumart.org/exhibition/piercing-the-inner-wall-the-work-of-dusti-bonge/.
​ ​​

Photo gallery with highlights of the exhibition

Piercing the Inner Wall: ​The Art of Dusti Bongé
April 11, 2019 - September 8, 2019
​Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA

Exhibition curated by Bradley Sumrall
https://ogdenmuseum.org/exhibition/piercing-the-inner-wall-the-art-of-dusti-bonge/
​
​Photo gallery with highlights of the exhibition