Betty LaDuke is an American painter born in 1933 in Bronx, New York. Betty is known internationally for her murals, paintings, and sketches. Betty discovered her gift of being an artist at the age of nine years old. She attended the high school of Music and Art in New York. She continued to pursue art in her education career by attending the Cleveland Institute of Art at Denver University. Betty received a scholarship that allowed her to study art in Mexico’s Institutio Allende. Betty lived with the indigenous Otomi people while she lived in Mexico from 1953 through 1956. The Otomi people were highly concerned with preserving their heritage, their heritage is now influenced in the artwork of LaDuke.
LaDuke graduated from California State University in Los Angeles with an art teaching credentials and a master's degree in printmaking. LaDuke’s artwork expresses socialist progress, life’s continuity, American civil rights struggles, women’s rights and more. Other elements in LaDuke’s art include animals, rituals, and celebrations. Betty was the second woman art teacher at Southern Oregon University and was the only woman in the Art Department for eighteen years. Betty took the initiative to develop woman dominion in the Art department by implementing two art courses at SOU. The two classes initiated are Women and Art and Art in the Third World. In Betty’s latest career she devoted her time to exploring world art and recording the experiences of women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. She created murals for Heifer International, painted the walls of schools in Mexico, and her paintings are located in the Schneider Museum of Art, located in southern Oregon university. Betty has received many awards, including the received the National Art Education Associations Ziegfeld Award for unique international leadership.
I chose Betty because I was drawn by her artwork on black women's culture and history I was initially looking for an African American woman artist with paintings of a black woman. In my search I came across Betty's which attracted my eye, there was something unique about her art that drew my eye. I also noticed a spice of Mexican culture in her art which sparked a curiosity in me to find out more. The paintings I chose by Betty below, create a legacy for the African American people. The brutal history of slavery that our African ancestors faced will always be respected and remembered through Betty's s paintings. African Americans have been deprived and silenced throughout history in all fields of work and Betty's art defeats that.
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Laduke, Betty, Tree of Life, 2000
Tree of Life, 2000 (68"x54") (Eritrea).
Copyright Betty LaDuke
Millet Rhythms, 1992 (72"x68") (Africa).
Copyright Betty LaDuke
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