Robert Kushner & The Group

Robert Kushner

“Dorothy Browdy Kushner…transmitted her graphic flair to her well-known son, the artist Robert Kushner.”

-Holland Cotter, The New York Times, 11.3.2006                                                                                          –

Black and white photo from January 1965 showing a young man, Robert Kusher, and an older woman, Dorothy Browdy Kushner (son and mother), posing together outdoors with a vintage Chevrolet truck in the background.

“During my childhood, there was nothing more interesting than my mother’s studio: big, odd, eccentric, full of energy and always full of ideas….When The Group came over, and when I did not have to be in school, I was in heaven. I watched and listened and marveled. How they could examine and analyze a painting or drawing, pick it apart and kindly offer suggestions on how to make it stronger!…

(Later) When she would visit New York, after the trip from the airport, quite often she would put down her bags, say hello to my kids, and then come into the studio to see “what was new”.  Of course, precise and sometimes harsh critique was what she had to offer.                                                                                         –

Throughout her adult life, Dorothy painted every day… Toward the end of her life, Dorothy was living in an Alzheimer’s nursing home. I took her to a Chinese restaurant and, to pass time, we played a round of the color-mixing game. I asked her how she would mix a color of the small plate of orangish duck sauce that was put out on the table. There was a very long pause. I had thought that she had forgotten or not understood my question, and then finally she said, speaking slowly but clearly: ‘I would start out with Cadmium red deep and white, then start adding yellow.’”  

-Robert Kushner 

The Group

A vintage photo showing four people. In the foreground, a woman in a red coat is walking, followed by an older man, a younger man in a black shirt, and another woman in an apron. They are near a house and an old vehicle.

Betty Rodbard, Dorothy Kushner, husband Joe Kushner, and teenage Robert Kushner in front of the Dorothy’s large chicken barn turned studio, 1963.

In the mid 1950s a group of San Gabriel Valley female modernists, calling themselves “The Group”, began meeting monthly. They discussed current trends in art, examined and critiqued paintings that each member brought, and provided mutual support. 

Since most were abstractionists or created very stylized modernist representational imagery, there was little talk about subject matter. The conversation centered on composition, color and line, usually following a Hans Hoffman derived discourse on push-pull, “thrust”, dynamism of form or central shaft.  Many of them had studied with Richards Ruben, a Hoffman acolyte who had re-located to Los Angeles.

Only women were invited. There was little conversation on careerism since, as middle class housewives, they felt that their career options at that time were near zero. Discussion of family issues was discouraged in order to keep the focus on the art. No records were kept since they were not interested in documentation.

They were linked by their passion for painting, embrace of modernism, and support for each other as female painters. At a time before Feminism became a rallying cry, they worked together closely, and supported each other with commitment, confidence and good humor for nearly twenty years.

Two women in vintage clothing indoors, holding cups, with framed pictures in the background.

Artists Lillian Chapman and Katherine Skeele Dann examine a painting at a meeting of The Group in Dorothy’s studio

The Group disbursed around the time that Dorothy moved away from Arcadia in 1972. By then several key members had died, and their need for support had changed form.  Members included Lillian Chapman, Ruth Codman, Katherine Skeele Dann, Sally Glenn, Helga Hansen, Herica Hartmetz, Lee Hill, Mary Jane Kieffer, Dorothy Browdy Kushner, Dorothy Lotts, Audrey Peterson, Ann Roberts, Betty Rodbard, Esther Staeyart, Miriam Stein, and Mildred Townsend.