Bailey Doogan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Bailey Doogan
Born	Margaret Mary Bailey (1941-10-24)October 24, 1941 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	July 4, 2022(2022-07-04) (aged 80) Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	Margaret Bailey Doogan
Education	BFA, Moore College of Art (1963), MA, University of California in Los Angeles (1977)
Occupation	Artist and professor emerita
Known for	Large-scale oil paintings and charcoal drawings

Bailey Doogan (October 24, 1941 – July 4, 2022) was an American artist. She was famous for her large paintings and drawings. Her art often showed the female body as it ages. She also explored ideas about how society sees beauty, especially how it often connects beauty with being young. Many important art magazines and publications, like Art in America and Ms., wrote about her work.

Growing Up and School

Bailey Doogan was born Margaret Mary Bailey on October 24, 1941, in Philadelphia. Her father was a milkman, and her mother worked as a waitress and salesclerk. Bailey grew up in a Catholic family. She later said that her Catholic upbringing, her first job in advertising, and the women's art movement were the biggest influences on her life.

Bailey was the first person in her family to go to college. She went to Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia on a scholarship. Even though the college had a fine arts program, she studied illustration. This led to her first job in advertising. Later, in 1977, she earned a master's degree in animated film from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Her Life and Work

After college, Bailey Doogan moved to New York. She joined a design company called DeMartin Marona and Associates. In 1968, she helped redesign the famous Morton Salt Girl icon. She had to create many versions of "Mortie," as the icon was called, because the company kept asking for changes. Her final design of the girl with an umbrella and a leaking salt box was used for many years. This experience later inspired her large pastel painting called “Pour It On.”

Even though she was a successful designer, Bailey found out that the men who worked for her made more money. So, she quit her job, even when they offered her a raise. In 1969, she moved to Tucson, Arizona, to teach graphic design at the University of Arizona. She married Ed Doogan and had a daughter named Moira. She also moved to Rancho Linda Vista, an artist community. In Arizona, she started to focus more on painting and drawing instead of illustration. She began using the name "Bailey Doogan" for her art.

Bailey Doogan taught at the University of Arizona until 1999. She was a professor of design, painting, and drawing. After 1999, she became a professor emerita, which means she was a retired professor who kept her title. She also visited and taught at many other art schools. Bailey Doogan passed away in Tucson, Arizona, on July 4, 2022, when she was 80 years old.

Early Art

Bailey Doogan explored different art styles and topics before focusing on women and aging. For her master's degree in 1977, she made an animated film called Screw: A Technical Love Poem. This film compared the language of love to parts of a machine. It was shown at film festivals around the world, even in Australia and Venice.

In the early 1980s, Bailey created several series of portraits. For a project called "Articulate," she interviewed and recorded important women in the art world. She then created large portraits of these women. In the art gallery, speakers next to each portrait played parts of her interviews. This created a soft sound of women's voices talking about their experiences in the art world.

She also created a series called "Punch and Judy" in 1984. These were oil paintings, prints, and even a painting with a 3-D puppet stage. Her early art used bright colors and abstract shapes. Even though her style changed later, she continued to use multiple panels and explore how society sees women.

Later Art

Bailey Doogan started creating large charcoal drawings around 1988. One of her students told her that some male friends said Bailey wasn't a good artist. Instead of just getting angry, Bailey created a large, three-panel artwork called RIB. It featured three life-size self-portraits. For her charcoal drawings, she used a special technique. She put many layers of gesso (a white paint-like substance) on paper. Then, she rubbed charcoal over the gesso. She would then "draw" by sanding away the dark charcoal to create lighter areas. This made her drawings look very realistic, almost like photographs.

Her charcoal drawings often showed realistic figures against soft, blurred backgrounds. This technique is called sfumato (which means "fumes" or "smoke" in Italian). It was used by famous artists like Leonardo da Vinci in the Mona Lisa. Bailey's 1989 work LILY (Lie/Lay) shows this realistic detail and soft background. This piece also used words and played with language, which was a common theme in her art.

While working on her charcoal drawings, Bailey also created large oil paintings. To make her realistic oil paintings of the body, she used a technique called impasto. This is where paint is applied very thickly, sometimes with a palette knife. This made the paintings look three-dimensional, showing details like wrinkles and veins. She also added glazes to her paint, which made the figures look bright and alive. Her 1992 oil painting Mea Corpa shows this. The painting's name, Mea Corpa, is a play on Latin words from Catholic mass, connecting to her Catholic background.

Bailey Doogan's art has been compared to famous painters like Rembrandt and Thomas Eakins. People admired her skill in showing the human body. Her paintings are realistic, but they also show strong emotions.

Challenging Ideas

Not everyone liked Bailey Doogan's art. Some of her works caused strong reactions. Sometimes, her art was even removed from exhibitions or museums. This happened because her images of older women's bodies went against what many people in society expected to see as "beautiful," which is often linked to youth. Art historian Mary D. Garrard said that Bailey Doogan's work was important because it challenged these ideas about beauty and what is acceptable to show in art.

Exhibitions

Selected one-person exhibitions

• 1973: Drawings, Memorial Union Gallery at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
• 1980–1983: Female Series, Harry Wood Gallery at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona; Joseph Gross Gallery at University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, California
• 1983–1985: Articulate, Elaine Starkman Gallery, New York, New York; University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona; Dinnerware Artists’ Cooperative Gallery, Tucson, Arizona; Idaho Art Center at University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
• 1985: Punch & Judy, Scottsdale Center for the Arts, Scottsdale, Arizona; Dinnerware Artists’ Cooperative Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
• 1988: Self Portrait Diary, Visual Arts Gallery at Pensacola College, Pensacola, Florida
• 1989: Context and St. Lucy/Oedipus, Etherton Stern Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
• 1990: Chairwoman, Cerro Cosa College, Ridgecrest, California
• 1991–2004: Six solo exhibitions of paintings, prints, large drawings and/or small paintings with etched glass, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
• 1991/1992: Artists of Conscience series, Alternative Museum, New York, New York
• 1992: Large drawings, The Irish Arts Center, New York, New York
• 1992–1993: Mea Corpa, Alternative Museum, New York, New York; Sheppard Fine Arts Center at University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada; Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada; Etherton Stern Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
• 1998: A Survey of Drawings, 1988–1999, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
• 2000: Positions, Dana Women Artists Series, Rutgers University, Rutgers, New Jersey; Rowe Arts Main Gallery at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina
• 2005/2006: Bailey Doogan: Selected Works 1971–1998, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona held concurrently with Bailey Doogan: Selected Works 1993–2005, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
• 2009: Translations, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
• 2014: Spill (collaboration with Ann Simmons-Myers), Etherton Gallery, Tucson, Arizona

Selected group exhibitions

• 1977–1979: Contemporary Issues: Works on Paper by Women, Woman's Building, Los Angeles, California; Sarah Blaffer Campbell Gallery, Houston, Texas; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 1979: New Talent Exhibition, Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 1982/1984/1986: Arizona Biennial 1982, Arizona Biennial 1984 and Arizona Biennial 1986, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
• 1987: Artistas en Residencia, Galeria Principal, Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic
• 1987: Women Artists, The Tyrone Gutherie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, New Bliss, Ireland
• 1989: Gallery Artists, Jayne H. Baum Gallery, New York, New York
• 1989/1990: American Women Artists: The 20th Century, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee
• 1990: American Women Artists, Queensboro College Gallery, Bronxville, NY
• 1991: Forces of Eire, The Irish Arts Centre, New York, New York
• 1991/1992: Artists of Conscience: 16 Years of Social and Political Commentary, Alternative Museum, New York, New York
• 1995/1996: Made to Order: America’s Most Wanted Paintings, Alternative Museum, New York, New York
• 1997/1998: Signs of Age: Representing the Older Body, Santa Barbara Contemporary Forum, Santa Barbara, California
• 2000: Picturing the Modern Amazon, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, New York
• 2001: 9/11/01, Anton Gallery, Washington, District of Columbia
• 2003: Guest List, Gescheidle Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
• 2007: Eccentric Bodies, Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
• 2008/2009: Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
• 2010: Made in Tucson/Born in Tucson/Live in Tucson, Part 1, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, Arizona
• 2014: A Show of Hands, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
• 2019: Face to Face: Self Portraits Before Selfies, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas
• 2020: Of the Flesh, Davis Dominguez Gallery, Tucson, Arizona
• 2020/2021: Unapologetic: All Women, All Year, Scottsdale Museum of Art, Scottsdale, Arizona

Film festivals and screenings

Selected film festivals and screenings

Bailey Doogan's animated film SCREW: A Technical Love Poem won an award and was shown around the world:

• 1977: Poetry Film Festival, San Francisco, California, toured the United States and Europe
• 1977: Experimental Film Festival, Nyon, Switzerland
• 1977: Film Forum at the Science Fiction Film Festival, New York, New York
• 1978: Filmmakers Exposition Festival, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
• 1979: The Hirshhorn National Museum of Modern Art, Washington, District of Columbia
• 1979: The 5th Annual Center Screen's Animation Series, Harvard Film Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• 1979: The American Film Festival, New York, New York
• 1979: The Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• 1979: Women Artists Filmmakers Festival, Global Village, New York, New York
• 1979: The Venice Biannale, Mostra Internazionale del Cinema, Venice, Italy
• 1979: The 20th Annual Adelaide International Film Festival, Adelaide, Australia
• 1980: International Festival of Women's Films, Copenhagen, Denmark
• 1983: Cambridge Animation Festival, Cambridge, England