Celebrating Life: Betty LaDuke Retrospective
Schneider Museum of Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, Oregon 2013
“LaDuke is an artist who has never worked according to the demand of current fashion, but has chosen instead a unique and deeply personal course. Her art resonates with humanity and social responsibility that is simultaneously intimate and politically engaged with issues of the day.” –Bruce Guenther, Art Historian and Independent Curator, 1984
“My Dear Sister Betty LaDuke, you will always have a special place in my heart, and I will continue to admire your artistry and respect your activism in the interest of peace with justice.” – Johnnetta B. Cole, Director, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, 2017
“In 1953 she received a scholarship to attend the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico–an experience that whetted LaDuke’s appetite for travel and fed a lifelong interest in world culture. While in Mexico she met muralists Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, whose dedication to an art representing the working people continues to influence LaDuke’s content.” – Portland Art Museum 2015
“The challenge for me as an artist is to convert the essence of momentary events into archetypal images. Between myth and reality, my paintings, etchings, and panels evolve slowly and reflect local traditions as well as encompass our shared human emotions and aspirations.” – Betty LaDuke
“My Dear Sister Betty LaDuke, you will always have a special place in my heart, and I will continue to admire your artistry and respect your activism in the interest of peace with justice.”- Johnnetta B. Cole, Director, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, 2017
“LaDuke’s work is illustrative and documentary, political and spiritual. LaDuke has always been an art of cause and conscious. Her work asks the viewer to value and celebrate the beauty of other cultures, while recognizing humanity’s enduring hardships. Her images bridge people as well as continents. We are one.” –Bonnie Lang-Malcolmson, Curator of Northwest Art, Portland Art Museum, 2017
“As soon as you enter the Sankt Ottilien Gallery, it becomes evident: the current exhibition, which can be visited until Friday, February 10, 2023, is extraordinary.”-Romi Löbhard, Landsberger Tagblatt Magazine, 2023
“This exhibit is a great testimonial to Betty LaDuke’s enduring commitment to social justice, to her advocacy for peace, nuclear disarmament, and sustainability around the world. The last 50 years have provided ample occasions for LaDuke to deploy her considerable artistic talents as a force for good against a broad array of evils, and in her life and art she models a version of globalism not motivated by greed or defeated by cynicism.”- Gloria Ruff, Associate Curator, Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University 2019
Exhibit Information
Contact: Betty LaDuke at bladuke@jeffnet.org or call (541) 482-4562
Current Exhibit Schedule: Sankt Ottilieng, Eresing, Germany, 2022-2023; Philomath Museum, Philomath, OR, 2024
