Bio of Dorothy Tanner (Jan. 30, 1923 – July 23, 2020)
Visit Remembrance of Dorothy Tribute Page
“Light has the power to create, define, and solidify; or leave in shadow that which we believe to be real.”
“The major challenge for me in art is to keep under control the tyranny of a logical mind. The spirit that moves me is capricious, unruly and irreverent. Most of my work grows out of intuitive impulse–the rest gets underway by just playing.”
– Dorothy Tanner
The following was written in the recommendation section of the Lumonics Facebook page, and we were all deeply touched by this, especially Dorothy:
The artist who creates these pieces is so charming and fun. She was born around the time of the Depression, but her work will do anything but. Her pieces are created using acrylic plastic which is manipulated using heat. The led lights she uses are carefully selected to ensure they play off, and with the sculpture. She loves color and the combinations she selects always ensure the piece still has a fun, sometimes whimsical, and interesting story to tell. If you ever have a chance to see one of Dorothy’s art gallery openings, you will never look at art the same. Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery is the place where an artist can find inspiration and everyone else can become consumed within it.
– Mandi S.
Dorothy Tanner was born in The Bronx, NY in 1923. She studied woodcarving with Chaim Gross at the Educational Alliance, sculpture with Aaron Goodleman at the Jefferson School of Social Science, and was a student of Gabor Peterdi and Milton Hebald at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. It was at the Brooklyn Museum where she met Mel Tanner and married two years later in 1951.
The Tanners moved to Syracuse, NY where they began the Syracuse Art Workshop, teaching painting and sculpture. They also taught an art class for children in the summer at Syracuse University. *
In 1963, they returned to New York City and founded an artists’ co-operative, Granite Gallery, on East 57th Street. The Granite Art Association organized seminars, forums, and exhibitions. “The New Face in Art” Forum took place at the Loeb Center at New York University. Participants included Louise Nevelson, Red Grooms, Norman Carton, and art writer Gordon Brown.
While experimenting with many materials in her career, Dorothy found acrylic glass to be the most rewarding. It is a material that she would sculpt, paint, sandblast, bake and shape. Some are wall sculptures, some free-standing or mobiles, while others are water sculptures. Light is an intrinsic element of the art form. LEDs have been the primary source of lighting the works since 2002.
Each sculpture stands alone as an artistic expression, although her interest was to also integrate the works into a total environment — installations that express a powerful visual and emotional sensibility.
Dorothy Tanner and Mel Tanner began their luminal art in Miami in the 1960s, adding the elements of live projection, electronics, and music to create a multi-sensory experience they called Lumonics with the intention to deeply affect people on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels: to relax, energize, and foster a sense of well-being. **
After the passing of Mel Tanner in 1993, Dorothy collaborated with long-time associate, Marc Billard, creating sculptures, electronic music, and video, and continuing to build the Lumonics expression.
Since arriving in Denver in 2008, light art exhibits have included Union Gallery (DIY collaborative art gallery), VERTIGO Art Space, the Museum of Outdoor Arts, Denver International Airport, Union Station, The Scarlet (Central City), the Lakewood Art Center, the McNichols Civic Center Building, the Arts & Culture Center in Thornton, Understudy Gallery in the Denver Theatre District, and Meow Wolf Denver.
Lumonics Then and Now: A Retrospective of Light-Based Sculpture of Dorothy and Mel Tanner, the highly- acclaimed exhibit filled the entire Museum of Outdoor Arts indoor galleries from January to March of
2017. ***
In January of 2018, Dorothy’s Lumonics Mind Spa opened on the 1st floor of the McNichols Civic Center Building in downtown Denver. It featured light sculptures by Dorothy and Mel Tanner and music and video by Dorothy Tanner and Marc Billard. Dorothy’s intention for this meditative environment was for everyone to experience new ways to stretch the body, expand the mind, and achieve greater spiritual awareness. One of the highlights was hosting the Americans for the Arts Convention in June. The twice-extended exhibit ended in August, and became the longest running exhibit in the history of the McNichols Building.
Dorothy Tanner was the 2018 recipient of the Mayor’s Arts & Culture Innovation Award for the City and County of Denver, “presented to an individual or organization that is breaking new ground in the arts and whose contribution to innovation in the arts has been significant in 2018.”
Following Dorothy’s site-specific installation at the McNichols Building, she founded the Lumonics School of Light Art. The School offers an innovative hands-on approach to learning light art, and was awarded Westword’s Best of Denver 2019 award.
Dorothy Tanner died peacefully in her sleep on July 23, 2020.
Since her passing, Dorothy and Mel Tanner’s light art was selected as the opening exhibit in The Galleri at Meow Wolf Denver’s Convergence Station.
The Tanner art was also featured at the Understudy Gallery in The Denver Theatre District and was part of the gallery exhibit, Luminaries, at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
The light sculptures are an integral part of Lumonics Immersed which is presented at Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery in Denver.
Memorial Tributes from the Community
Wikipedia
WikiArt
Excerpts from a few articles about Dorothy:
“When Dorothy Tanner dons her rugged work clothes—dungarees, sneaker, sweat shirt, safety glasses and heavy gloves—she isn’t going to work in a foundry. She’s about to use an acetylene torch to heat and bend bits of copper tubing and shapes of brass and steel into art forms. One half of the art team of Mel and Dorothy Tanner works in metal work sculpture and the other half in oil paintings.”
– Alice F. Keegan, “Blow Torch Her ‘Brush’”, The Post-Standard, 1961
“Difficult to describe, beautiful and unusual, the Lumonics Light and Sound Theatre is hard to compare or judge, comprehend even, because it has no peers. It is different, something unto itself, and not entirely of this world.”
– Ken Plutnicki, “Light Show a Theatre of the Mind”, The Miami Herald
“One of the most unusual yet beautiful experiences in the world of art…”
– David Tedeschi, “The Light Fantastic”, The Miami Herald
“When I first encountered the art universe of Mel and Dorothy Tanner in the current retrospective, my mind leaped ‘back to the future.’ In the hands and liberated minds of these two adventurous artists, the medium of light, as embodied and expressed in their sculptural muses, delights more than our eyes alone can absorb. As this exhibition demonstrates, the creative spirit transcends virtually everything it makes in revealing itself and engaging us with its revelations!”
– Todd Siler, artist, educator, and art historian, who discussed the Retrospective at the Exploring the Denver Art Scene Forum at the Denver Art Museum in February, 2017.