A painting Dusti Bongé kept in her home

A tremendous departure from our last Dusti Bongé artwork demonstrating her remarkable range as an artist. This painting is dark and muted and abstract; the previous one was representational, colorful, lively.

Analysis of the painting comes from Dusti Bongé Art Foundation Executive Director Ligia M. Römer.

Dusti Bongé, Distillate of the Past (Fragment of the Past), 1958. Oil on canvas, 54″ x 42”. Collection of the Mobile Museum of Art. Gift of the Dusti Bongé Art Foundation. 

This week’s work from a museum collection hales from the Mobile Museum of Art. It is a wonderful painting from Dusti Bongé’s abstract expressionist period. It must also have been a favorite of hers, as it is shown hanging in her own house in the 1982 movie, “Dusti Bongé: Life of an Artist.”

This work is a great example of Dusti’s appreciation for all colors. The palette of this work is not only limited, but also extremely subdued. With shades of white, gray, and brown she creates a rich and nuanced painting with alternating dark and light accents.

Dusti’s powerful, almost fierce, white brush strokes against a receding dark substratum brings about a kind of abstract chiaroscuro. This light/dark composition further comes alive through her deft juxtaposition of the various deep shadows and luminous highlights. The slightly elusive title of the work adds additional layers of depth and mystery. 

This painting recently traveled in an exhibit titled “Spotlight: Dusti Bongé” to several venues in the US through a special arrangement called The American South Consortium. The consortium was a multi-year partnership between the Mobile Museum of Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the Columbia Museum of Art, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art.