Dusti Bongé

1903 - 1993

Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, Dusti Bongé (neé Eunice Lyle Swetman), enjoyed a long and successful career from the deep South to Chicago, New York and back. As a painter she evolved from Cubism and Surrealism in the 1930s and 40s to Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s. She maintained a long friendship with NY dealer Betty Parsons and showed regularly in Parsons namesake gallery. Bongé was recently honored with a retrospective exhibition, "Piercing the Inner Wall: The Work of Dusti Bongé" at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans and the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. Since her death her estate has been managed by the Dusti Bongé Art Foundation in Biloxi. In 2019 the Foundation published a 350 page book by J. Richard Gruber on her art and Life.

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Dusti in her Biloxi, MS, studio in 1957

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Woman with Brown Body Scrubbing, c.1941

mixed media on paper

11 x 13 1/4 inches

signed at lower right, titled

#12812

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Dusti in her Biloxi, MS, studio in 1957

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Woman with Brown Body Scrubbing, c.1941

mixed media on paper

11 x 13 1/4 inches

signed at lower right, titled

#12812

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Untitled (Surrealist Composition with Face), c.1945

mixed media on paper

8 1/2 x 11 1/4 inches

signed at upper left

#12814

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Untitled (Surrealist Circus Scene), c.1945

mixed media on paper

16 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches

signed at lower right

#12813

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Untitled (Inside the Circus Tent), c.1945

watercolor on paper

16 3/4 x 13 inches

signed at lower right

#12815

Dusti Bongé (1903 - 1993)

Untitled (Olmec Figure), c.1955

watercolor and ink on paper

17 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches

signed at lower right

#12823