Some even call her Texass greatest 20th-century painter.
Its not hard to see why.
Her massive canvases burst with contorted shapes pulled from nature and her own psyche.
Dorothy Hood, photographed in front of her work in 1972.
She intersperses rich fields of color with plunging canyons, jagged-edge orbs, and tender drips of paint.
But really, Hood, a fiercely independent woman, followed a school all her own.
Their relationship had its ups and downs, but he is steadfast about the quality of his sisters work.
Dorothy Hood,Blue Waters,c. 1980s.
Dorothy Hood,Blue Waters,c.
(Hollis Taggart is now co-representing Hoods estate, along with McClain Gallery, based in Houston.)
Her parents split when she was 11.
Dorothy Hood,Tough Homage to Arshile Gorky,c. 1970s.
A terrific draftswoman, Hood won a scholarship to the Rhode Island School of Design.
Along with two friends, Hood drove down toMexico Cityin 1941.
She was mentored for a decade byJose Clemente Orozco,who taught her the importance of authenticity in art.
Brochure from Hood’s solo exhibition at GAMA in Mexico City, 1943.
He always said, Dorothy, tell the truth at all costs.
No matter what the cost is, she once said.
McAndrew would introduce Hood to his MoMA colleagueDorothy Miller,who became a friend and advocate of Hoods work.
Dorothy Hood,Untitled,1980s.
In 1946, Hood married the renowned Bolivian composer Jose Maria Velasco Maidana, 22 years her senior.
Hed bring Hood along to his concerts around the world, educating her in the fine arts.
The 50s saw Hood develop her abstract painting style, closer to what shed become known for.
One of Hood’s collages. Dorothy Hood,Picasso Is Everywhere,1982–97.
By the early 1960s, Hood and Maidana had moved back to Houston.
Texas brought a new world of influences into Hoods art.
I feel the space in Texas…it frees me.
Dorothy Hood,Brown Cloud Floating,1970s–80s.
It connects me with the sky.
It connects me with the earth, she once said.
For me this has been the difference between a small orchestra and full symphony, she said.
This being Houston in the 1960s, space exploration also had a significant impact on Hood.
NASAs Johnson Space Center had just opened in the city.
Houstons new stadium was named the Astrodome, and its baseball team, the Astros.
Hood sometimes used bunched-up paper or foil to add texture to her paintings.
Travel, too, was a source of inspiration.
She also used newspaper clippings, tissue paper, and other ephemera.
I actually fell in love with Dorothys collages first, Greene says.
Hood was at the center of the burgeoning Houston art scene.
Dorothy really became, I think, the important senior figure among that group of artists, Greene says.
She enjoyed enormous respect from other people.
She was championed by art critic and formerVoguecontributor Barbara Rose.
Even more pivotal was her representation by Meredith Long, an influential Houston gallerist who represented Hood for decades.
Hopes that the retrospective would travel, maybe even to New York, fell through.
Each painting is an experience, Hood once said.
And the experience of taking in a Dorothy Hood painting is a bit like excavating a dream.
Were all influenced by our past, the culture we surround ourselves with, the news of the day.
To channel your own psyche but include all these references is no easy feat.
Some, like Hood, were born to do it.
