Caroline Wogan Durieux

American, 1896–1989

Caroline Wogan is best known for her satirical, often pessimistic depictions of people and events. She was born in New Orleans in 1896, and showed early proficiency, studying art with brothers William and Ellsworth Woodward at Newcomb College. Wogan graduated in 1916 with a B.A. in fine arts, and in 1917 with a degree in art education. She enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia with a scholarship from the Art Association of New Orleans and funds that would otherwise have been used for her society debut. In 1920, she married Pierre Durieux, a General Motors executive from New Orleans, and spent several years in Cuba. In Mexico by 1926, she befriended Diego Rivera (1886–1957), the muralist and social activist, and his wife, Frieda Kahlo (1907–1954). Durieux shared Rivera's leftist and egalitarian views, if not his outright communist principles. With biting social satire, she took aim at the privileged, the arrogant, and the mendacious, but also made light of the idiosyncrasies of everyday people such as André. Rivera also taught her to make lithographs.

Durieux returned to New Orleans in 1936; two years later, she went to work for the WPA Louisiana Writer's Project. She began teaching painting at Newcomb College in 1939, at the same time serving as director of the regional office of the Federal Art Project. With support from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Durieux organized exhibitions of modern art in Latin America. In 1942, she joined the faculty at Louisiana State University and remained for twenty-one years. Durieux concentrated increasingly on printmaking, experimenting with radioactive inks, aided by faculty in the Department of Nuclear Science. She also revived a nineteenth-century process of printing on transparent surfaces in collaboration with LSU biochemists. Later compositions include biomorphic abstractions, such as "Jazz," suggesting the influence of Joan Miró (1893–1983), the Surrealists, and New York School artists such as Mark Rothko (1903–1970).