Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn Kramer (December 2, 1903 – July 5, 1992) was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School.
Background
Dunn was born on 2 December 1903 in
The Studio School
While completing her degree, Dunn outlined plans to teach art in the Civil Service at the Santa Fe Indian School and submitted her proposal to the superintendent Chester Faris. She was given a position teaching fifth grade with a half-day to teach art to older students. The Studio School thus opened on 9 September 1932. Established Native artists Julian Martinez and Alfonso Roybal painted murals at the school to welcome the young artists.[5]
Among her students were
Engaged to fellow teacher Max Kramer and overwhelmed by conflicts with the school administration, Dunn resigned in the spring of 1937.
Style
Dunn believed that her students had an innate artistic ability, a belief widely promoted by Native American art teacher
The style she taught featured heavily outlined flat fields of color, illustrative and narrative portrayals of ceremonies, dance, and mythology, painted primarily in opaque watercolors.[10] Dunn taught a single style of painting influenced by the work of the San Ildefonso painters of the 1910s and 1920s – "a style that she believed, rightly or wrongly, was the only authentic painting style for Native American artists to follow."[2] The style she advocated, called the "Studio Style" or "flat-style painting", was inspired by Pueblo mural and pottery painting, Plains hide painting, and rock art.
Dunn's strict adherence to a single style of painting has been widely criticized, especially from within the Native American community. Celebrated
Later career
Dunn applied and was rejected for employment by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. She lectured about
In 1968, she published the book, American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas.[14]
Death and legacy
She died on 5 July 1992 in Mountain View, California from Alzheimer's disease. She was buried in San Gorgonio Memorial Park in Banning, California.[15]
Her collection of paintings was donated to the Museum of New Mexico in the 1970s. In 1992, Dunn's daughter, Etel Kramer, donated her papers – scholarly and personal – to that museum.[16]
Notes
- ^ Melzer, 127
- ^ a b c Bernstein and Rushing, 5
- ^ Bernstein and Rushing, 6-7
- ^ Bernstein and Rushing, 8
- ^ a b Bernstein and Rushing, 9
- ^ Bernstein and Rushing, 24
- ^ a b Bernstein and Rushing, 14
- ^ Berlo and Philips, 217
- ^ Bernstein and Rushing, 12
- ^ Penney, 200.
- ^ Bernstein and Rushing, 15
- ^ Bernstein and Rushing, 25
- ^ Dunn, book jacket
- ^ Dunn
- ^ Melzer, 127-8
- ^ Bernstein and Rushing, vii and 14
References
- Berlo, Janet C. and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford History of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-19-284218-3.
- Bernstein, Bruce, and W. Jackson Rushing. Modern by Tradition: American Indian Painting in the Studio Style. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1995. ISBN 0-89013-291-7.
- Dunn, Dorothy. American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968. ASIN B000X7A1T0.
- Melzer, Richard. Buried Treasures: Famous and Unusual Gravesites in New Mexico History. Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-86534-531-7.
- Penney, David W. North American Indian Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. ISBN 0-500-20377-6.