The Mississippi Museum of Art (the Museum) has unveiled Piercing the Inner Wall: The Art of Dusti Bongé, an expansive survey revealing the full range of pioneering artist Dusti Bongé.

On view from February 26 until May 23 July 11, 2021, the exhibition comprises 65 paintings, 29 works on paper, and three sculptures drawn from private loans and public institutions including works from the Museum’s own collection.

Considered Mississippi’s first artist to work consistently in a Modernist style, Bongé (1903–93) was active in New York’s dynamic art scene and creative communities which flourished along the Gulf Coast in the 1930s through the early 1990s. During her lifetime, she created a multifaceted body of work that transitioned from figurative and Cubist depictions of scenes of her hometown Biloxi in the late 1930s, through a period of Surrealism and into Abstract Expressionism that defines her mature work.

The exhibition follows the publication Dusti Bongé, Art and Life: Biloxi, New Orleans & New York, the first major book devoted to the art and life of the artist. With this publication, J. Richard Gruber, Ph.D., Director Emeritus of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, examines Bongé’s art and career from a regional and national perspective, situating her in the larger context of 20th century American Art.

Piercing the Inner Wall: The Art of Dusti Bongé, a presentation in the Myra Green and Lynn Green Root Memorial Exhibition Series, is presented with support from the Dusti Bongé Art Foundation and Visit Mississippi. The exhibit is curated by Bradley Sumrall, Curator of the Collection, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and organized by Ogden Museum of Southern Art.