Caroline Dukes (May 19, 1929 – June 8, 2003) was a painter and installation artist, born in Hungary but moved to
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
,
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
in 1967. Today, she is considered a Manitoba artist.
Career
Dukes was born in Ujpest, Hungary and apprenticed with sculptor,
Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl
Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl (1 July 1884 – 14 August 1975) was a Hungarian sculptor and artist. His sculptural style integrated elements of realism and academism
Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpt ...
in 1948 while taking night classes at the Free University. In 1952, she enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest (
Hungarian University of Fine Arts
The Hungarian University of Fine Arts ( Hungarian: ''Magyar Képzőművészeti Egyetem'', MKE) is the central Hungarian art school in Budapest, Andrássy Avenue. It was founded in 1871 as the Hungarian Royal Drawing School ''(Magyar Királyi Min ...
). In 1958, after a defeat of the Hungarian uprising against communism (1956), her family immigrated to Toronto. She moved to Winnipeg in 1967 and resumed her studies at the School of Art,
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Ivan Eyre
Ivan Kenneth Eyre (15 April 1935 – 5 November 2022) was a Canadian artist best known for his prairie landscapes and compositionally abstract, figurative paintings. In addition, Eyre was a Professor Emeritus of painting and drawing at the Uni ...
, and graduating in 1972.
Dukes' paintings were influenced by her experiences as a holocaust survivor and as a witness to communist cruelty in Hungary. Her paintings were organized in series: Nudes (early 1970s); Interiors; Landscapes; At the Focus of Forces (1989); Buildings (1991) (shown at Budapest's Vasarely Múzeum (1993)); and Cities (1998). She created her most moving work ''Remember...Relate...Retell'' (multimedia work that included drawings, photographs, text, ready-made objects, video, audio, and constructions) in 1992, undergoing hypnosis to be able to recall memories of her own childhood and connections to her father, whose death when she was four and then recent death of her mother were catalysts in the making of the work. The exhibition was shown at the
Robert McLaughlin Gallery
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...
, Oshawa, Ontario;
MacKenzie Art Gallery
The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; french: Musee d’art MacKenzie) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds e ...
, Regina, Saskatchewan; and at Plug In Inc. Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Dukes showed her work in exhibitions across Canada and abroad, including group shows in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
,
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
and
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
. Her work is represented in major collections world-wide including the Budapest Museum of Fine Art,
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...
, Canada Council Art Bank, Manitoba Arts Council Art Bank, The Bronfman Collection and the Princess Anne Collection. In 1994, she was elected to the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880.
History 1880 to 1890
The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...
.
In 1995 she became a founding member of SITE Gallery, Winnipeg’s first artist-run commercial cooperative exhibition space (1995-2005) and in April 2003, two months before her death of cancer, she completed an autobiographical work called ''Circus''. She died in Winnipeg on June 8, 2003.
Legacy
In 2003, the Manitoba Artists for Women Art established the Caroline Dukes Legacy Fund which is administered by the Winnipeg Foundation. She was honoured posthumously with a 2008 solo
retrospective
A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...
titled ''Caroline Dukes: concealed memories'' at the
Winnipeg Art Gallery
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...