Dusti Bongé (American, 1903-1993)

Beginning in 2014, Amanda Winstead Fine Art represented the Estate of Dusti Bongé. Located in Biloxi, MS, the DBAF has over 1,000 works of art by Mississippi’s most accomplished abstract artist. Amanda Winstead has inventoried, catalogued and appraised the entire collection of the DBAF, making her expert in the holdings of the DBAF and the work of Dusti Bongé.

Dusti Bongé (1903-1993) had a prolific artistic career that spanned over fifty-five years. Initially working in a modern style influenced by Cubism, Bongé experimented with Surrealism in the late 1930s and 1940s. By the mid-1950s, she was working fully in the vein of Abstract Expressionism. In 1946, the highly influential Betty Parsons Gallery opened in New York. Dusti forged a strong relationship with the prominent Abstract Expressionist dealer who would represent her for almost three decades, mounting several solo exhibitions of Bongé’s work which were critically very well received. Dusti traveled often to New York and was active in the art scene which was centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery. Among the many prominent artists in this circle, some became close friends, such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Kenzo Akado and Theodoros Stamos.

 Amanda Winstead Fine Art was pleased to be a part of Piercing the Inner Wall: The Work of Dusti Bongé at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art on view from April 11 to September 8, 2019.  The first major retrospective exhibition to tell the story of all periods of her work, the show was accompanied by the publication of a scholarly monograph written by J. Richard Gruber, Ph.D., Director Emeritus of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Dusti Bongé, Art and Life: Biloxi, New York & New Orleans. Piercing the Inner Wall: The Work of Dusti Bongé will now travel to the Mississippi Museum of Art on view February 20 through May 23, 2021.

Amanda Winstead Fine Art is pleased to present a select group of oil paintings and works on paper available for sale. This is a rare opportunity for collectors to acquire her work. We invite your inquiry.

Early Work

Dusti Bongé’s early work is characterized by a modern style influenced by Cubism.

Abstract Expressionism

By the mid-1950s, Dusti Bongé was working fully in the vein of Abstract Expressionism and mounting solo exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York. 

Later Work

Dusti Bongé was very prolific well into her seventies and eighties, creating several large scale oil paintings. 

Dusti Bonge’s work is included in the following museum collections:

·       Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY

·       The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC

·       Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, MS

·       Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS

·       Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL

·       Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA

·       Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 

·       Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

·       National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC

·       Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA

·       Radford University Art Museum, Radford, VA

·       The Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, LA

·       University of Southern Mississippi Art Museum, Hattiesburg, MS

·       Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Ocean Springs, MS

Bibliography:

Black, Patti Carr, American Masters of the Mississippi Gulf Coast: George Ohr, Dusti Bongé, Walter Anderson, Richmond Barthe, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

Black, Patti Carr, Art in Mississippi 1720-1980, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998.

Black, Patti Carr. The Mississippi Story. Ed. Robin C. Dietrick. Jackson: Mississippi Museum of Art, 2007.

Blackman, Lynne, ed., Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, Cloumbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2018. 

Bongé, Dusti, Dusti Bongé: The Life of an Artist, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1982.

Falk, Peter Hastings, ed., Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975, Madison, Connecticut: Soundview Press, 1999.

Gruber, J. Richard and David Houston, The Art of the South 1890-2003: The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, London: Scala Publishers, 2004.

Hall, Lee. Betty Parsons, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991.

Wierich, Jochen. Picturing Mississippi, 1817-2017: Land of Plenty, Pain, and Promise. Mississippi Museum of Art, 2017.