"Women Printmakers Lone Star Style: Mary Bonner & The Dallas Printmakers Guild"
2002-11-03 until 2002-12-15
McKinney Avenue Contemporary
Dallas, TX, USA United States of America

The McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC) presents Women Printmakers Lone Star Style: Mary Bonner & The Dallas Printmakers Guild, an exhibition of prints by San Antonio artist Mary Bonner and her contemporaries working in the 1930s. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Angelika Jansen-Brown of San Antonio, who will be in attendance at the opening. Mary Bonner is one of San Antonio‚s finest printmakers. Active in the 1920s and early 1930s, Bonner was one of the first women to be recognized as a professional artist in Texas.

According to Dr Jansen-Brown, was "the first female etcher ever to exhibit at the Spring Salons of 1925 and 1926 in Paris, where she won honorary mention [awards]." The exhibition serves to highlight Bonner‚s extraordinary achievements in both the United States and in Europe, to examine the scope of artistic expression among her Texas contemporaries, and to connect San Antonio‚s printmaking history to that of Dallas. Works in the exhibition will be loaned primarily from The Witte Museum in San Antonio and from private collections in Dallas, focusing on the Dallas Printmakers Guild. Finally, the exhibition will travel to The Witte Museum after its close at The MAC.

The Printmakers Guild in Dallas began in 1939,when one of its eight founding female members, Bertha Landers, was denied membership in the all-male Lone Star Printmakers. The group would be in existence for 25 years, totally run by volunteers. Their name changed to Texas Printmakers in 1952 and in 1962 they allowed their one and only male member, Paul Harris. Besides Landers, the founding members were Lucille Land Lacey, Blanche McVeigh, Stella L. LaMonde, Mary Lightfoot, Verda Ligon, Coreen Spellman, and Lura Ann Taylor.

To document the exhibition and Dr Jansen-Brown's extensive efforts to gather prints that often have never been photographed or shown, The MAC is producing a CD-ROM that will hold digital reproductions of each print in the exhibition, written and verbal narratives about the artists, and a permanent copy of taped interviews by Mary Carolyn Hollers-George, author of the leading book on Bonner, with printmakers Margaret Batts Tobin, Emily Edwards, Maureen Johnson Kincaid, and Evelyn Gladney Witherspoon. The CD-ROM is being designed and produced by freelance designer Hunter Dorman and will fit into a substantial brochure, where Dr Jansen-Brown's exhibition essay will be printed.

In short, the project is a tribute to women's historical achievement in the arts and in printmaking specifically, which are rarely recorded. It is our hope that contemporary artists today will be able to see the legacy left to them by Mary Bonner and her colleagues.

The McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC) offers opportunities for experimentation and for the presentation of art in all disciplines, and provides a forum for critical dialogue between emerging and established artists and their audiences. The MAC supports the artist‚s role in society, cultivates that relation through education and innovative programming, and stands as an advocate for creative freedom. The MAC is operated by Dallas Artist Research and Exhibition, Inc., a non-profit arts organization, and has been operating since October 1994.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Texas

Other Important Exhibitions in Dallas