Week #27, Coming Home I

Dusti Bongé, Still Life of Fruit and Vegetables, 1937, oil on canvas, 14 ¼” x 15 ¼”

In light of our new exhibit Coming Home: Becoming an Artist, we will take a look at some of Dusti Bongé's very earliest works from the 1930s. We start with this small still life painting of fruits and vegetables from 1937, which is featured in our show. There are a few remarkable things about this work.

First, painted less than a year after her husband Archie had passed away, this is a great example of how Dusti indeed found solace in his studio. Secondly, considering this piece is signed and dated "Dusty 9/37" en verso, it, along with a few others from this very early period, highlight how new this whole painting enterprise was to Dusti: she hadn’t even established yet how to spell her nickname, the one she would soon identify with for the rest of her life.

Thirdly, this modest still life of fruits and vegetables illustrates how Dusti availed herself of whatever may have been around in her kitchen or on her table. Featuring very ordinary southern foods including okra, bananas, a bell pepper, a cucumber, a tomato, and what looks like a small melon, she puts together a scene that appears effortless and not manipulated. Loosely scattered across a blue towel or tablecloth on a wood table, these are not fruits or vegetables with some symbolic profound meaning, they are not "displayed". Most likely, they are simply the ingredients for a good gumbo to be prepared soon.

Finally, Dusti’s innate artistic vision and approach, although not yet fine-tuned, are already evident here. Compositionally, the diagonal direction of the work within the almost square frame animates the piece. And the fact that the majority of the veggies are spilling out past the painting's edge rather than being neatly contained within, highlights the temporary, momentary nature of the whole scene.