Zoë Dusanne (born Zola Maie Graves; March 24, 1884 - March 6, 1972) was an American art dealer, collector, and promoter who operated the Zoë Dusanne Gallery in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

from 1950 to 1964.

Life and career

Dusanne was born Zola Maie Graves on March 24, 1884, in Newton, Kansas. From the age of nine she was raised in

Council Bluffs Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The city is the most populous in Southwest Iowa, and is the third largest and a primary city of the Omaha-Council Bluffs Metropolitan Area. It is loc ...

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

. She briefly attended both Oberlin College and the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

. In 1912, she moved to Seattle, where she operated a beauty salon. In 1928, she moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and began collecting works by modern abstract artists such as

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

, Piet Mondrian, Stuart Davis, Jean Arp, and

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly influ ...

On her return to Seattle in 1942, she began promoting advanced contemporary art, which had not previously been widely exhibited in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

. She loaned pieces from her growing collection to the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

and the

Henry Art Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...

, and in 1950, opened the Zoë Dusanne Gallery. She was an avid supporter of Northwest-based artists such as Guy Anderson,

Kenneth Callahan Kenneth Callahan (1905–1986) was an American painter and muralist who served as a catalyst for Northwest artists in the mid-20th century through his own painting, his work as assistant director and curator at the Seattle Art Museum, and his wr ...

Morris Graves Morris Graves (August 28, 1910 – May 5, 2001) was an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysticism, ...

, Paul Horiuchi, Philip McCracken,

Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...

, and George Tsutakawa, and played an important role in bringing national attention to the ' Northwest School'. Her gallery was the first in North America to mount shows by Japanese artist

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attribute ...

and French artist/poet

Henri Michaux Henri Michaux (; 24 May 1899 – 19 October 1984) was a Belgian-born French poet, writer and painter. Michaux is renowned for his strange, highly original poetry and prose, and also for his art: the Paris Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim ...

, and she was an early exhibitor of works by

Sam Francis Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,

, Paul Jenkins, Karl Otto Götz,

John Franklin Koenig John-Franklin Koenig (1924 — 2008) was an American artist who, though born and raised in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, and sometimes associated with the 'Northwest School (art), Northwest School' of artists, spent most of his career ...

, and many others. In 1953, largely as a result of Dusanne's efforts, ''Life'' magazine ran a major article on the "Mystic Painters of the Northwest", which propelled Tobey, Graves, Callahan, and Anderson to national prominence. In 1959, the custom-built Zoe Dusanne Gallery was demolished for construction of the Interstate 5 freeway; a second location lasted until 1964, at which time Dusanne retired. She died in Seattle on March 6, 1972.Dusanne, Zoë (1884-1972), Modern-art dealer, by Paula Becker; http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=5222

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dusanne, Zoe 1884 births 1972 deaths American art dealers Women art dealers