It’s a lovely story.
That of a small college for girls in Denton Texas which entered the high places of the Modernism movement.
The PDNB gallery is dedicating an exhibition until October 7, which it presents as follows:
It is no small thing that a women’s college in the small town of Denton, Texas started the first studio art program in a Texas public university system. And it is not insignificant to know that most of the teachers for this early studio program at Texas State College for Women (TSCW) studied art at Columbia University in New York.
Art historians in our region discovered that the notable painter, educator, Arthur Wesley Dow, taught these future Denton educators. He also taught Georgia O’Keeffe and Charles Sheeler. These future teachers also studied with the great Modernists such as Hans Hoffman and László Moholy-Nagy. The tendrils of Modernism spread from these women to their students at TSCW, later known as Texas Woman’s University (TWU).
This history of a small-town college in North Texas is a story that PDNB Gallery will help illustrate with the opening exhibition of their Fall season, Denton Modernism: 1940 – 1980.
This exhibition will include both photographs and paintings.
As a gallery that specializes in photography and photo-based art, it has become very familiar with the important artist, Carlotta Corpron, who was one of the students of Modernism at Columbia University that taught at TWU. Carlotta’s photographs have long been documented in the history of photography.
Carlotta’s influence in abstraction is another important part of the school’s history when she studied under the esteemed Bauhaus artists László Moholy-Nagy and György Kepes, who came to Denton as artists-in-residence. Corpron had a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953, giving her the recognition she deserved for being one of a handful of women photographers working in abstraction.
Denton Modernism : 1940 – 1980
Until October 7, 2023
PDNB Gallery
150 Manufacturing St Ste. 203
Dallas, TX 75207
www.pdnbgallery.com
