Dorothy Austin (1911-2011)

Born in Dallas, Texas, Dorothy Austin graduated from The Hockaday School in 1928 and left to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and at the Art Students League of New York under Arthur Lee and William Zorach. She returned to her hometown and began her brief yet noteworthy career in 1931 with a prize-winning entry in the Annual Exhibition of the State Fair of Texas. Working in wood, stone, and plaster to produce works which average one or two feet tall, Austin developed a style of direct carving, imbuing her figures with psychological intensity and primal strength.  

In 1936, Austin was commissioned to create six bronze door panels and a life-sized wooden cowboy for the Texas Centennial. Her panels, which were made for the three sets of bronze doors at the north entrance of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (now The Science Place), illustrate classic symbols of Texas life including mesquite, striped grass, corn, century plant, cactus, and thistle. The wooden cowboy, who holds his hat in his left hand and reaches for his pistol with his right hand, is housed in the West Texas Room at the Texas Hall of State. He rests upon a four-foot high wooden base bearing the Texas star and towers above visitors as a forceful icon of local history. 

In addition to the schools she attended, her work has been exhibited at the Delphic Studios in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Cincinnati Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, as well as the 1939 New York World's Fair. Austin won numerous prizes for her work including First Prize in Sculpture at the Fifth Annual Allied Arts Exhibition of Dallas County and National Junior League Exhibition, the Kiest Memorial Fund Purchase Prize at the Seventh Annual Dallas Allied Arts Exhibition , and the Neiman Marcus Prize at the Twelfth Annual Allied Arts Exhibition.

In 1944, at the height of her career, 33-year-old Austin stopped making art. She gave away her tools to fellow Dallas sculptor Michael G. Owen. When asked why she stopped sculpting, she said, "I don't really know why I quit... Maybe I shot my wad. Or maybe it was the war. Then the war ended and I got married." Whatever the reasons, Austin kept all of her unsold work. She maintained a private existence in Dallas, gently rebuffing inquiries about her art career until 1999, when the Valley House Gallery (Dallas, TX) featured a solo exhibition of her sculptures, the first display of her work since 1942. 

The simplicity of Austin’s carving is enhanced by the smoothness of her sculptures’ surfaces. The artist applied linseed oil to create a glossy, vibrant surface on her wooden sculptures, and perhaps it is for this reason that her works in this medium still appear as vibrant and freshly made as they did seventy years ago. Equally important is Austin’s carving technique, which she describes in her own words: “For wood I used a brass mallet. With wood you have to follow the grain to preserve the strength of the wood. You follow it one way, and then it will shift and go another way.” Thus, Austin formulated her compositions according to each piece of wood, allowing its structural makeup to guide her mallet. This facet of her technique is visually evident in the parallel tree-rings on Noggin (1933.22) which gracefully accentuate the contours of the man’s face, neck, and hair.

In 1936 Austin was commissioned to create six bronze door panels and a life-sized wooden cowboy for the Texas Centennial. Her panels, which were made for the three sets of bronze doors at the north entrance of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (now The Science Place), illustrate classic symbols of Texas life including mesquite, striped grass, corn, century plant, cactus, and thistle. The wooden cowboy, who holds his hat in his left hand and reaches for his pistol with his right hand, is housed in the West Texas Room at the Texas Hall of State. He rests upon a four-foot high wooden base bearing the Texas star and towers above visitors as a forceful icon of local history. Besides these large-scale commissions, Austin is well known in Texas and throughout the United States for her intimate sculptures, which average one to two feet tall. Her work has been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy, the Art Students League Gallery, the Delphic Studios in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the New York World’s Fair. Austin has also won numerous prizes for her work including First Prize in Sculpture at the Fifth Allied Arts Exhibition and National Junior League Exhibition, the Kiest Memorial Fund Purchase Prize at the Seventh Annual Dallas Allied Arts Exhibition , and the Neiman Marcus Prize at the Twelfth Annual Allied Arts Exhibition.

Dorothy Austin Interview at the Dallas Museum of Art, October 30, 2009. Transcribed by Hillary Bober. 13310634: UMO

VIDEO ASSETS  

Fifth Allied Arts Exhibition cat. 12710849: UMO

1936 Centennial exh cat. 12710905: UMO

Seventh Annual Dallas Allied Arts exh cat. 12710897: UMO

Twelfth Annual Allied Arts Exhibition cat. 12058004: UMO

apply to constituents where id equals 1619

Apply to objects where constituent_id equals 1619