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Dorothy Dehner Foundation

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Preserving the legacy of Dorothy Dehner through stewardship, scholarship, exhibitions, and access to her art and archives.

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We are excited to launch the official Instagram account for the Dorothy Dehner Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Dorothy Dehner was a major twentieth-century American artist whose work in sculpture, drawing, and printmaking helped shape the language of modern abstraction.

The Foundation is dedicated to preserving Dehner’s legacy, supporting new research, and sharing her work with wider audiences. Follow along as we highlight Dehner’s art, archive, exhibitions, and the continuing relevance of her extraordinary career.

Pictured: Dorothy Dehner in her studio at 41 Union Square, New York.

#DorothyDehner #DorothyDehnerFoundation #WomenArtists #AmericanModernism #ModernSculpture #WorksOnPaper #ArtHistory by @dorothydehnerfoundation

PRESS

Independent 20th Century
September 24 — 27, 2026
The Breuer, New York City
@independent_hq @berrycampbell

The Best Booths at Independent 20th Century
BY ANNE DORAN @artnews
September 25, 2026

It’s a big year for Independent, the art world’s favorite contemporary art fair, and its more art-historically minded sister, Independent 20th Century. On the heels of Independent’s move earlier this year from Spring Studios in New York’s Tribeca to the much larger Pier 36 on the Lower East Side, its 20th Century edition, which opens to the public today, has also relocated, shifting from its Lower Manhattan location to Marcel Breuer’s 1960s brutalist building on Madison Avenue and East 75th Street, formerly home to the Whitney Museum and now headquarters for Sotheby’s auction house.

While other New York art fairs like TEFAF and ADAA also deal in historical work, Independent 20th Century has a specific focus: art made in the 100 years between 1900 and 2000, with particular attention paid to expanding the art-historical canon. In this it reflects a growing art world impulse toward inclusivity, as witnessed by the increased presence of female artists, outsider artists, queer artists, and artists of the Global South at auctions, biennials, and museum exhibitions.

Standout presentations this year include “Black Soho,” curated by galleries Ryan Lee and Salon 94 and featuring works made in NYC between 1961 and 1984 by African-American artists such as Emma Amos, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Camille Billops, Frederick J. Brown, Vivian Browne, Ed Clark, David Hammons, and Norman Lewis. Elsewhere, Berry Campbell is showing a selection of pieces by the women artists of the famed Stable Gallery (1953–1970), including Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Charlotte Park, and Janice Biala.

Dorothy Dehner
Untitled, 1951
Ink and watercolor on paper
18 x 22 3/4 inches

Edith Schloss
Untitled, 1966
Oil on canvas
19 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches

Ethel Schwabacher
Et in Arcadia Ego #1, 1954
Oil on linen
30 x 36 inches

#independent20c #berrycampbell by @dorothydehnerfoundation

After working with wood and metal, Dorothy Dehner returned to casting in bronze in the early 1980s.
The linear purity of her pieces have Constructive and totemic qualities. They transcend works of art and ritual objects.

Bronze is charged with an imagery of dignity, and timelessness.
It invests Dehner’s Bayonet (1981) with monumentality in concept and refinement in style.
The title evokes pugnacity and energy. Flow and movement are at the roots of Dehner’s passion for blending dance, music and the visual arts.

Bayonet will be on display as part of Berry Campbell’s presentation: Women of the Stable Gallery at the Independent 20th Century Art Fair.

Dorothy Dehner, Bayonet (1981), Bronze, 15 1/8 x 5 3/8 x 2 in (photo, Berry Campbell)

Berry Campbell, Independent 20th Century, September 24-27, 2026, The Breuer, New York, Booth 307.
It will be the gallery’s inaugural participation in the fair.

@dorothydehnerfoundation @berrycampbell @independent_hq #dorothydehner #independent20c #dorothydehnerfoundation #berrycampbell by @dorothydehnerfoundation

Closing soon at the Art Institute of Chicago: "Beyond Form: Abstraction at Midcentury" includes Dorothy Dehner's 1950 drawing Moscovite — and the story behind it runs straight through one of the more remarkable trips of her career. In 1935–36, Dehner and her husband David Smith spent nine months in Europe, ending with a 21-day tour of the Soviet Union in June 1936. In Moscow, the couple visited Maria Dombrovsky, the former wife of their friend and mentor John Graham. There, Dehner was inspired by the stonework of the courtyard and the drawing Moscovite reflects both a type of stone and a resident of the city. Dehner built the drawing by splattering ink and connecting the resulting shapes into interlocking, gate-like corridors, channeling the stonework of that Moscow courtyard into pure abstraction over a decade later.

This trip, and its long afterlife in Dehner's work, is best documented in Paula Wisotzki's important essay "Americans Abroad: The 1930s, Politics, and the Experience of Europe,” SECAC Review XV, No.5 (2010): 584-598.

Catch Moscovite at AIC before it closes October 19. 📍Chicago

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994), Moscovite, 1950. Pen and ink and watercolor on paper. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Saviano in memory of Carl Schniewind, 1992.184. Art Institute of Chicago.

#DorothyDehner #AbstractionAtMidcentury #ArtInstituteChicago #ArtInstituteOfChicago #DavidSmith #AmericanModernism #WomenArtists #MidcenturyAbstraction #ClosingSoon by @dorothydehnerfoundation

The view from Dorothy Dehner’s studio windows at 41 Union Square played a meaningful role in her creative life.

Looking north from the studio, Dehner found a subject that she returned to in sculpture. Two works carry the title Looking North: one now in the collection of FAMM, Mougins, France, and another, Looking North F, in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

As we prepares to leave 41 Union Square, we are thinking about the daily views, rhythms, and surroundings that shaped Dehner’s work over many years.

Images:
1. Dorothy Dehner, Looking North, collection of FAMM, Mougins, France.
2. Dorothy Dehner, Looking North F, collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

#DorothyDehner #DorothyDehnerFoundation #LookingNorth #41UnionSquare #WomenArtists #ModernSculpture #AmericanModernism by @dorothydehnerfoundation

As we prepare to move from 41 Union Square, we are reflecting on Dorothy Dehner’s long history in this building.

Dehner established her studio at 41 Union Square in 1955 and worked there for decades. The building was not only her workplace, but also part of a larger community of artists.

A poster for the exhibition 41 Union Square Goes South at Newhouse Gallery, Snug Harbor, documents several artists working in the building: Hank Virgona, Mary Ellen Doyle, Caterina Bertolotto, Dorothy Dehner, Chaim Tabak, Jan Wunderman, and Dennis Gouey.

In recent weeks, as the Foundation prepares for the move, we have had the privilege of meeting neighbors and building staff who remember Dehner and her presence in the building.

Images:
1. Dorothy Dehner’s business card, listing her studio at 41 Union Square.
2. Exhibition poster of for 41 Union Square Goes South
3. Newspaper clipping, from left to right: Hank Virgona, Mary Ellen Doyle (in rocking chair), Caterina Bertolotto, Dorothy Dehner, Chaim Tabak, Jan Wunderman, and Dennis Gouey.

#DorothyDehner #DorothyDehnerFoundation #41UnionSquare #UnionSquareNYC #ArtistStudio #WomenArtists #AmericanModernism by @dorothydehnerfoundation