Week #18 Monochrome Works I

Untitled (Black Curving Lines and Squiggles), 1960, ink on paper, 27 ¼” x 20”

This month we will look at some unique works on paper Dusti Bongé created in the early 1960s. They offer an interesting divergence from her large canvases of the same period.

The 1960s were a time of several significant shifts in Dusti’s personal life. Her son Lyle had gotten married, so there was a new member of the family. Then her elderly father, unfortunately, broke several ribs and needed extra care. Dusti therefore moved from her home to a house next to her old family home, so she could be close to her father. And then her grandson Paul was born a few years later, another addition to the family. Amidst all that she had another show at Betty Parsons.

Meanwhile, she continued finding alternative ways to work with familiar materials. She created several drawings like the one shown here, with delicate thin ink lines which stand in stark contrast to the bold gestural brush strokes of her other work, including many of her other works on paper. Nonetheless, they do still offer a genuine example of “abstract expressionism”, as it had become interpreted during that time. They are still very loose, painterly, and have visible strokes (of the brush, knife, etc.). They also show no clearly identifiable shapes but do offer interesting rhythms.

This ink drawing exhibits all those features. The dominant curved lines against the secondary, sinuous, thinner lines, and the stipples in the lower right quadrant, all contribute to the loose, and rhythmic whole of the piece. There is almost a musical quality to the work, as if a conductor drew this composition in the air.