Estate of Edward Dugmore American, (1915-1996)

Edward Dugmore is best known for his association with the “New York School” of Abstract Expressionism. He began drawing as a child, and with his mother’s encouragement, he entered the Hartford Art School with a full scholarship in 1934. In 1943, like countless men of his generation, he joined the United States Marines. After the war, he moved briefly to Manhattan before attending the San Francisco School of Fine Arts on the GI Bill. There he studied under Clyfford Still, who quickly became a mentor and lifelong friend.

After leaving California, Dugmore moved his family to Mexico, where he obtained his Masters of Fine Art from the University of Guadalajara in 1952. His studies completed, he returned with his family to New York where he became a ubiquitous part of the now legendary downtown scene of Abstract Expressionist painters. He was a regular at the Cedar Street Tavern where he formed friendships with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko. He was the first artist to receive a solo exhibition at the seminal Stable Gallery, which was lauded by peers and critics alike. During this time he played a central role in the milieu surrounding the gallery. He often worked as a carpenter for the owner, Eleanor Ward, helping hang exhibitions and often sleeping in the abandoned hayloft, which earned the gallery its name.  In the 1960s Dugmore and his wife, Eadie purchased land in Washington, ME where they returned each summer to paint. The natural landscape of Maine, as well as the American West, particularly Colorado and Montana where he visited as a resident artist during the 1960s, had a profound impact on his painting.

Edward Dugmore was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on February 20, 1915. He underwent traditional art training at the Hartford Art School before going to Kansas City in the summer of 1941 to study with Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute. He entered the Marine Corps in 1943, and upon his discharge, taught painting and drawing at St. Joseph's College in West Hartford, Connecticut. In 1948, Dugmore took advantage of the G.I. Bill and moved out west to San Francisco to further his studies in art at the California School of Fine Arts. There he studied with Clyfford Still, who was influential on his development, both as an artist and a close friend. Dugmore also became a lifelong friend of fellow student and artist Ernest Briggs. During this time, he co-organized an artists collaborative gallery called the Metart Gallery. In 1951 he moved to Guadalajara, Mexico to study at the University of Guadalajara, where he received his M.F.A.

 

He moved to New York City in 1952 and began exhibiting along with other Abstract Expressionist artists at the Stable Gallery, where he subsequently had three solo exhibitions. His paintings have been in exhibitions in important museums, institutions and art galleries over the course of eight decades beginning in the 1940s. Some of the museums and institutions in which his paintings have been seen include: 

 

Ball State University Museum of Art, Muncie, Indiana;  Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina; Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the New School for Social Research, New York, New York; The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Oregon, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, Utah; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California; American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; New York University, New York, New York, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; The Kansas City Art Institute; The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Musee A. Lecuyr, Saint-Quentin, France (organized by MoMA); among others.

 

His work is in the permanent collection of several prominent museums including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Menil Collection in Houston.

 

Dugmore received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966, National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1976 and 1985, and the Pollock-Krasner FoundationLifetime Achievement Award in 1995. In 1992 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1994.

Paintings by Edward Dugmore are in a number of important public and private collections, most notably the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC.

Edward Dugmore died June 13, 1996, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.