Dorothy Hood

Dorothy Hood (August 22, 1918 – October 28, 2000) was an American painter in the Modernist tradition. Her work is held in private collections and at several museums, most notably the Museum of Modern Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her preferred mediums were oil paint and ink.

Early life Hood was born in Bryan, Texas and raised in Houston. She was an only child. Hood was of German and Swedish descent, and experienced a strict, Episcopalian upbringing. Her father was a banker who often traveled out of town on business. She also associated with writer Luis Buñuel and artists Miguel Covarrubias, Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo. Hood stayed for a time with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and had a spat with them because of a dispute that Sophie Treadwell had with Rivera, although Hood later regretted not trying to reach out to Rivera more. Her paintings, which often refer to natural events, are noted by their large color areas. Her art also references her Texan roots with expansive imagery and sweeps of color indicative of the southwest. Hood was influenced by mythology, science and spirituality. Her work was particularly inspired by Taoism and the Yogi of Sri Aurobinda, In 1976, she taught at Colorado State University.

The 1970s saw Hood's career take off. That same year, Hood showed at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi. Hood also expressed that she felt that narrative paintings, in their adherence to time frames, miss the essence of the subject.

Drawings

Hood was also known for her drawings. Her drawings were thought to "reflect profound intimacy of [Hood's] spiritual and emotional growth over 30 years." Linear elements and organic symbols were employed in Hood's drawings to create multidimensional space. From 1941 to 1948, Hood's drawings mostly featured self portraits with an imaginative element, her family, children, and animals. Some depicted unhappy and impoverished children in Mexico. Hood was empathetic towards lonely youth as she identified with them after her own lonely upbringing. Neither her parents, nor her training at the Rhode Island School of Design had any long-term influence on her drawings. Much like Hood's drawings featured a multidimensional spatial framework, The exhibit includes 65 paintings, and 35 drawings and collages. Many of her papers, including eight scrapbooks and numerous documents of her career, are also on microfilm at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution. Many correspondences have been discovered in her belongings, including letters exchanged with Meredith Long who discovered Hood in Mexico, and Clement Greenberg.

Addison Gallery of American Art at Philips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, Texas Baylor University, Waco, Texas Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, Texas Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York Maier Museum of Art, Randolph College, Lynchburg, Virginia McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas Museo Moderne Arte, Mexico City, Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York Neuberger Museum of Art; Purchase College East, Purchase, New York Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Louisiana Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Rice University, Fondren Library, Houston, Texas San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California Texas A&M University Art Galleries, College Station, Texas University of Houston, Houston, Texas University of Mary Washington Galleries, Fredericksburg, Virginia Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts