CORPUS CHRISTI, TX.- The Art Museum of South Texas announces its newest exhibition, The Color of Being/El Color del Ser: Dorothy Hood (1918-2000). It is the first major retrospective to document and celebrate the vibrant career of early Texas Modernist Dorothy Hood, and will remain on view through January 8, 2017.
The landmark exhibit features 160 works -- 84 paintings, 47 drawings and 29 collages -- produced from 1935 to 2000, including 54 works from AMST’s permanent collection and archives (the largest collection of Hood’s work in existence) and additional pieces from 65 museums, corporations, foundations, and private collections located across Texas and America.
Using the exhibition as a catalyst, AMST introduces innovative hands-on technologies and educational interactives to bring Hood’s works of art to life and redefine the art museum experience.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book written by guest curator/author Susie Kalil of Houston and published by Texas A&M University Press, that expands on Hood’s contributions to modern art in Texas and her place in 20th century American art history.
Dorothy Hood at the Art Museum of South Texas
The Color of Being/El Color del Ser: Dorothy Hood (1918-2000) is the largest, most expensive project presented in AMST’s history, although Hood’s artwork has been featured previously as part of the Museum’s commitment to Texas artists.
Dorothy Hood Drawings was displayed in 1976, toured from the Everson Museum of Art, only four years after AMST opened the doors of the Philip Johnson building.
In 2003, shortly after AMST acquired the major portion of the artist’s estate, Dorothy Hood: A Pioneer Modernist was displayed and included pieces as they were found in the artist’s studio. Through The Color of Being/El Color del Ser, AMST guests will appreciate Hood as a major Modernist who left an inspiring legacy.
Technique and Influences
Hood’s paintings, using the vibrant palette of Latin America, show mature techniques and an eye for color, texture, form, line, and scale.
“Through staining and broad applications of paint across primed canvas, Hood created abstract compositions that often “open up” the painted surface and allow the viewer to optically enter a kind of space not unlike familiar images we now see photographed by cameras located in places far beyond Earth,” stated Dr. William G. Otton, the Director of AMST in 2004.
Hood’s drawings were influenced by surrealism, as well as her lonely youth and her time in Mexico where she lived for a significant portion of her life. Her collages displayed unique depictions of history, as well as space and dimensions of the mind and psyche of people.
A generation of art enthusiasts, art historians, and the viewing public are unaware of Hood’s talent and the breadth of her career and impressive body of work. Her career spanned the second half of the 20th century across multiple continents.
Although well known in Texas, unlike many of her contemporaries, her contributions to American art history were limited beyond the Lone Star State. While she may have become better known had she chosen to move and work in New York, she chose to live in Texas, stating “The spirit of Texas is in my work. We are on Mexican territory here and Mexico is where my art started. I don’t think that I could be anyplace else to do my work.”
From the 2003 exhibition catalogue essay by Lauraine Miller stated: “Dorothy Hood was a major regional artist, some say, the best abstract painter of her generation in Texas….It wasn’t easy being a woman making large, abstract canvases for a conservative art audience in Houston beginning in the 1960s.” Miller went on to comment that Hood’s best years as a painter were in Texas, inspired by the big sky, the pioneer spirit, and “space” in all its manifestations.
