Dorothy Browdy Kushner, Modernist

Dorothy Browdy Kushner, Modernist Overlooked California Modernist painter active from the 1940s - 1980s. Mother of and inspiration to Robert Kushner.

After my engagement with full abstraction, I had to break it off! I missed my original sources of inspiration too much. ...
04/02/2025

After my engagement with full abstraction, I had to break it off! I missed my original sources of inspiration too much. Now in the early 1960’s I’m going back to nature —flowers, trees, birds, etc. I paint these in a semi-abstract manner portraying a mood. Although I am moving back to representation, I have not forsaken the compositional and gestural lessons I learned while making abstracts.

The first image is one of my more stylized landscape examples, and the second is a bit more traditional. I go both ways. The third shows the second painting hung in my studio. I’ll talk more about my workspace and fellow artists in tomorrow’s post!

Harbor II, 30.25 x 44.25” in frame, 1964
Trees oil on canvas, 40 x 64”, mid 1960s

Now, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I’ve been studying the painterly organic vaguely quadrilinear shapes of French p...
03/28/2025

Now, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I’ve been studying the painterly organic vaguely quadrilinear shapes of French painter Nicolas de Staël. I love the way he sets those shapes in clusters mid-picture plane.

I’ve also become fascinated with the abstracted quality of rocks, focusing on closeup views of rock formations that I derive from newspaper and magazine photos. In fact, I created a whole “Rocks” series!

Here are two examples:
Rocas, 30 x 40”, casein on board, 1958
Megalith, 29 x 40”, casein on board, 1963

The third pic shows me standing in front of another Rocks series painting that and still need to find in storage and archive. More on that one soon!

In the mid-1950s I wanted something different from what I was doing, and so I took a class that Richards Ruben was teach...
03/28/2025

In the mid-1950s I wanted something different from what I was doing, and so I took a class that Richards Ruben was teaching. He had been a student of Hans Hoffman and taught Hofmann’s compositional concepts of push-pull, thrust, and dynamism of form. He was quite influential in my life, changed my whole style from realistic to abstract.

I was also drawn to the work of Pierre Bonnard Art especially his palette, but I would also isolate a small corner of one of his paintings as a reference for the beginning of a new painting.

Holiday, 22 x 32”, acrylic on board, 1956

Hi! I’m Dorothy Browdy Kushner (1909 - 2000), an overlooked California Modernist active from the 1940s - 1980’s. I’m mot...
03/28/2025

Hi! I’m Dorothy Browdy Kushner (1909 - 2000), an overlooked California Modernist active from the 1940s - 1980’s. I’m mother of and inspiration to the artist

The second image is an example from my Prismatics series. I also created gestural abstractions, landscapes, and florals inspired by artists of my time and by the nature of Southern California.

manages my page and will post regularly. Please follow me and help bring my art the attention it deserved but did not receive in my day!

Fish, 14 x 22, casein on board, 1952

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