MILDRED WOOD DIXON (SHERWOOD) (1914-2018)

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Mildred Dixon was raised in Houston, and was in the legendary inaugural class at Kinkaid School. Mildred attended Halmorole Preparatory School in Connecticut and went on to Sophie Newcombe College in New Orleans, where her art studies sparked a passion that was to last for the rest of her life. She studied with Xavier Gonzalez at Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans and with Carlos Merida in Mexico. In her thirties she began painting full time and studied in Taxco in Mexico, Positano in Italy, and the art school of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, later working with Jimmy Ernst, the son of Max Ernst.

Over a long career her work was shown at museums and galleries all over Texas, in London and at the Knoedler Gallery in New York, as well as being included in the permanent collection of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. In her own highly original style, she painted vivid images in oils of early Houston, from the (then) virgin woodlands of Memorial Drive to the Fifth Ward; later, while living in Guatemala and Mexico, she captured the color and mystery of traditional religious ceremonies, as well as scenes from her own magically-populated imagination. In the 1950's, Mildred was one of the founding members of the C.G. Jung Centre in Houston.

She was a gifted painter and a lifelong beauty, much admired in her native Houston for her natural ability to be very charming, very funny, sometimes outrageously outspoken, and to get exactly what she wanted.

Selected Biographical and Career Highlights

1914 Born in Fort Worth, Texas
1932-35 Sophie Newcomb College, New Orleans, Louisiana
2018 Died in Savannah, Georgia

Selected Prizes, Awards

Houston Annual: Cash Prize 1953, 1955 (December), 1959, 1960; Honorable Mention Purchase Prize 1953; Honorable Mention 1951
1951 Honorable Mention, Dilemma, oil
1953 Cash Prize, Chichicastenago, oil and Honorable Mention Purchase Prize, Sunday Afternoon, oil
1955 (December) Cash Prize, Holy Week, oil
1959 Cash Prize, Conflict, oil
1960 Cash Prize, Water, oil
Texas Annual: Cash Prize 1950; Recommended for Purchase Prize 1950, 1951
1950 Cash Prize and Recommended for Purchase Prize, Animal Fair, mixed media
1951 Recommended for Purchase Prize, Utopia, oil
Texas Fine Arts Association: Prize 1954

Selected Exhibitions

1937 13th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1949 11th Annual Texas Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture 1949-1950, circulated: Witte Museum, San Antonio; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
1950 Bute Art Gallery, Houston, Texas
1950 25th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1950 12th Annual Exhibition of Texas Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1951, circulated: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Witte Museum, San Antonio; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (cash prize and recommended for purchase prize)
1951 26th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (honorable mention)
1952 Texas Contemporary Artists, M. Knoedler & Company, New York, New York; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas (catalogue)
1952 Solo, Latin American Paintings by Mildred Dixon, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1952 27th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1953 Houston Post Exhibition, Houston, Texas
1953 28th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (2 entries: cash prize and honorable mention)
1954 29th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1954 Texas Fine Arts Association, Austin, Texas (prize)
1955 Two Texas Artists (Kelly Fearing and Mildred Wood Dixon), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1955 30th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1955 31st Annual Exhibition of Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (cash prize)
1955–56 D. D. Feldman Collection of Contemporary Texas Art: An Exhibit of 100 Paintings, traveled; 1956 Feb at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (Mexican Afternoon) catalogue
1956–57 D. D. Feldman Collection of Contemporary Texas Art: 1956 Invitational Exhibition, traveled; 1956 Dec–1957 Jan at McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas (Storm Center) checklist
1959 D. D. Feldman Competitive Award Exhibit: The Contemporary Work of 82 Texas Artists, traveled (Joy) checklist
1956, 1964 Contemporary Arts Association, Houston, Texas
1957-58 32-33rd Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1959 34th Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (cash prize)
1960 Tri-State Fair, Amarillo, Texas
1960 35th Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (cash prize)
1962 McRoberts & Tunnard Gallery, London
1964 Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2006 Houston Art in Houston Collections: Works from 1900 to 1965, Heritage Society Museum, Houston, Texas
2006–07 Of This Vast State: Women Artists of Texas, 1900–1960, Women’s Museum, Dallas, Texas
2013 Rhythms of Modernism, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas
2015 Bayou City Chic: Progressive Streams of Modern Art in Houston, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas (catalogue)
2016 This WAS Contemporary Art: Fine and Decorative Arts in Houston 1945-1965, Heritage Society Museum, Houston, Texas (catalogue)

Selected Sources

Powers, John and Deborah Powers. Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas before 1942. Austin: Woodmont, 2000.

Reynolds, Sarah C. Houston Reflections: Art in the City, 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Houston: Rice University Press, 2008. http://cnx.org/content/col10526/latest.

Dallas Museum of Art. Portal to Texas History: http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/partners/DMA/browse.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Exhibition history online: http://prv.mfah.org/archives/search.asp?par1=1&par2=1&par3=1&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7.

Mildred Dixon-Sherwood

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