PaperCity Magazine

October 2014 - Houston

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ART MUSEUM OF SOUTH TEXAS, CORPUS CHRISTI DOROTHY HOOD ARCHIVE, AMST, CORPUS CHRISTI DOROTHY HOOD ARCHIVE, ART MUSEUM OF SOUTH TEXAS, CORPUS CHRISTI "T here's no other Texas artist, male or female, with her heft and romantic history," curator/scholar Susie Kalil says about the subject of her epic, years-in-the-making exhibition and book: the late Houston-based painter Dorothy Hood (1918 – 2000). Expect the retrospective (and the volume that shares its name) "The Color of Being/El Color del Ser" to come to full flower in the fall of 2016, with its premier venue the Philip Johnson building and Ricardo Legorreta wing of the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi — the first time the museum has devoted both spaces to a single artist. Kalil plans to travel the show internationally, focusing on Mexico, and to the East and West Coasts. After moving to New York in the 1930s, the RISD- educated Hood drove to Mexico on a lark in 1942 and remained there for 20 years, at the epicenter of movements that swirled around Mexico City in the 1940s and 1950s; she palled around with Neruda, who composed a poem to her, and even rubbed shoulders with Orozco. She met her husband, Bolivian composer José Maria Velasco Maidana, at the casa of Diego Rivera. When the pair moved to Houston in 1962, she quickly became one of the leading artists in a world dominated by big brash male painters. With a studio in the Heights (which I visited as a fledgling assistant at the venerable Meredith Long & Company), Hood was represented by the blue-chip Long for decades and collected by America's major museums — from the Whitney Museum of American Art to the Museum of Modern Art, as well as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Blanton Museum of Art in Austin; McNay Art Museum in San Rewriting REMARKABLE DOROTHY THE BOOK ON The H OOD Antonio; and the Dallas Museum of Art. Above all, she was enthusiastically embraced by the first families of our city for her soaring paintings, which bridged the void and color field; obsessive drawings with a Gothic-surreal sensibility; and collages that embraced globalism and sampled world cultures. Among her distinguished and discerning patrons (some still among us, others departed) were Dominique and John de Menil, Nina Cullinan, Cornelia and Meredith Long, John O'Quinn (a regular in her studio), Mavis Kelsey Sr., Carol Ballard, Isabel Brown Wilson, Diana and Bill Hobby, Carol and Robert Straus, Fayez Sarofim and Carolyn Farb — the latter, executive producer of a 1985 documentary on Hood and the underwriting chair of this project, which to date has raised more than $500,000. Says Kalil of her quest to resurrect Hood's place within the annals of American art: "We have a chance to reshape art history here in ways we've never imagined. We have a moment to shine on the international radar which could develop new scholarship, new bridges between Texas and Mexico." One hopes that a Houston museum will step to show this retrospective of Hood's delicate and darkly beautiful drawings and canvases of vast proportions that mine the vortexes of deep space. For exhibition/ book details or to donate, contact museum registrar Michelle Locke, 361.825.3500, artperson45@gmail. com. Catherine D. Anspon Dorothy Hood's Untitled, circa 1980s Dorothy Hood's Devastated Child Without Armor, circa 1961 COLLECTION JASON AIGNER AND MARY AIGNER, HOUSTON Dorothy Hood, circa late 1930s Dorothy Hood, circa 1943 share fashion & design with facebook.com/papercitymag share fashion & design with facebook.com/papercitymag SAVVY FANS bite size dose of twitter.com/papercitymag twitter.com/papercitymag INTELLIGENT COMMENTARY follow the trends with the google.com/+papercity google.com/+papercity CHIC ELITE a glimpse into the tumblr.com/papercitymag a glimpse into the tumblr.com/papercitymag EYE OF OUR EDITORS shop sans guilt by pinning dozens of PHOTOGRAPHY JENNY ANTILL pinterest.com/papercitymag shop sans guilt by pinning dozens of pinterest.com/papercitymag DESIGNER DELIGHTS view the world of style through our instagram.com/papercitymag view the world of style through our instagram.com/papercitymag FASHION FILTER SHARING IS CHIC WITH (JOIN THE CONVERSATION)

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