Caroline Durieux

Life

Durieux was born in New Orleans, La on January 22, 1896. She began to draw at the age of four and received art lessons from Mary Butler, a member of the Newcomb College Art faculty. She worked in watercolor from the age of six and in 1908 created a portfolio of watercolors depicting new Orleans scenery. Most of these early works are in The Historic New Orleans Collection. She continued at Newcomb College of Tulane University in the Art School headed by Ellsworth Woodward. From her college days she was interested in satire and the use of humor in her imagery. Durieux earned a bachelor's in design in 1916 and a bachelor's in art education in 1917, and she pursued graduate studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art led by Henry McCarter (1866 – 1942). She returned to Louisiana after graduate school and married Pierre Durieux (1889 - 1949) in April 1920. Pierre worked in his family's business importing laces and dress goods from many Latin countries.

The Latin connections led Pierre to a job in Cuba which Caroline described as a time of "quiet artistic growth that heightened her sense of color. Caroline Durieux lived in the French Quarter in the mid 20s and was part of a circle of talented and creative individuals featured in a private publication, "Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles" Her next door neighbors were the author William Faulkner and the silver designer William Spratling.

In 1926, Pierre was named chief representative of General Motors for all of Latin America. While he traveled throughout the region, Caroline stayed and worked in Mexico City. Caroline had received a letter of introduction to Diego Rivera from Tulane anthropologist Franz Blom which helped ease her transition into the local community of artists. In 1929, Rene d'Harnoncourt (1901-1968), an important figure in the art world and later the director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, organized a solo exhi-bition of Caroline's oils and drawings at the Sonora News Company. Diego Rivera wrote a favorable review of his friend's exhibition and then chose the occasion to paint her portrait

Again, a promotion for Pierre marked an important development in his wife's career. This time they moved to New York, where Caroline forged a lifelong friendship with Carl Zigrosser (1891-1975). Zigrosser would champion Durieux's career first as director of the prestigious Weyhe Gallery on Lexington Avenue, then as the curator of prints at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and by including her in his many books on prints and their creators. It was Zigrosser who recognized Durieux's talent and eye for satire and encouraged her adoption of lithography as a primary means of artistic expression.

In 1931, the Durieuxs again were transferred to Mexico City. Caroline was eager to learn more about lithography, and she enrolled in the Academy of San Carlos (now the National University of Mexico) to study with Emilio Amero (1901-1976). Amero had a passion for lithography and was a major influence on Durieux as well as many other artists in Mexico and the United States.

In 1934, Durieux experimented with etching, a technique she learned from Howard Cook (1901-1980). Caroline wrote to Carl Zigrosser: "All my etchings are harrowing. I think it is because the medium is such a precarious one-the least slip and all is lost. I can't be funny on a copper plate. I feel tragic the moment I think of doing an etching."

In 1937, Pierre Durieux was diagnosed with severe cardiac disease, and his doctors ordered him to return to the United States. The couple left Mexico reluctantly and returned to New Orleans.

The dean of Newcomb College, Pierce Butler, hired Durieux to teach in the art department for the 1937 fall term. Durieux always credited Woodward and Newcomb for her drawing skills, and she placed particular importance on ensuring that her students could draw before advancing to other classes.

Durieux took on a second job as director of the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration in February 1939. In a state where segregation by race remained legal until the 1960s, Caroline's Louisiana division of the FAP was the only project not to practice segregation. Caroline always expressed great pride in that accomplishment: "I had a feeling that an artist is an artist and it doesn't make any difference what color he or she is." Robert Armstrong Andrews, associate director of the national office, praised Durieux's work: "It is my observation that the people in Louisiana have more concern with the potentialities of the Negro and less for his limitations than the people of any other state.” From 1943 to 1964, she taught in the art department at Louisiana State University.

She developed the technique of cliché verre, printmaking on glass, and electron printmaking (with radioactive ink).

Her papers are held at Louisiana State University and the Archives of American Art. In 2010, a retrospective, "Caroline Durieux: A Radioactive Wit", was exhibited at the LSU Museum of Art.

Durieux died on November 26, 1989 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.