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Dorothy Gillespie (1920-2012) enjoyed an active, seven-decade career as an artist, educator, and influencer who challenged traditional female roles. A Roanoke, VA native, Gillespie attended the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1940-43, after which she moved to New York City and became Assistant Art Director for a luxury department store. She also studied at the Art Students League and Stanley William Hayter’s printmaking studio, Atelier 17. She began as a painter but experimented with a variety of artistic styles and mediums, including “happenings” in the 1960s.
In the 1970s, Gillespie’s paintings began coming off the walls, concurrent with her involvement with the women’s art movement. She was one of the founders and co-coordinators of the Women’s Interart Center and helped promote fellow women artists in New York City. She also loved teaching and coaching young artists. In 1977, Gillespie began teaching at the New School for Social Research; she became a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow from 1985-1995, visiting over 50 small private colleges (including Hollins) to give lectures and workshops.
Gillespie is best known for her large-scale, colorfully painted indoor and outdoor metal sculptures. This exhibition, originally planned for 2020 in commemoration of the centennial of her birth, focuses instead on her small-scale tabletop sculptures. All but one of the works on view were selected from Gillespie’s Narrowsburg, NY studio. These diminutive works parallel many of the forms used in her large-scale sculptures, and this exhibit explores Gillespie’s process of painting, cutting, bending, and manipulating the metal into a variety of forms and shapes. Unlike Gillespie’s public work, however, these tabletop sculptures were affordable and accessible to private collectors, and brought movement, color, and joy into people’s homes
Dorothy Gillespie’s sculptures can be seen throughout the United States in public buildings, parking garages, schools, colleges and universities, libraries, music venues, corporate headquarters, and more. One of the highlights of her career was a 2003 commission to create an outdoor sculptural environment for Rockefeller Center. She also had commissions at Lincoln Center and Disney’s Epcot Center. Her work can be found in hundreds of museums and private collections, and Roanoke is home to much of her art. 2020 marked the centennial of her birth and celebratory exhibits were planned nationwide. Many had to be rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but many went on to celebrate Gillespie’s life in art.
While she was living, Dorothy Gillespie established the Dorothy M. Gillespie Foundation, a 501C3 not-for-profit foundation. Her son, Gary Gillespie Israel, has continued her mission to inspire and educate young artists by establishing the Dorothy M. Gillespie Art Award in her memory at Hollins University.
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