Reference Works

• Marter, Joan. "Dorothy Dehner," Dictionary of Women Artists. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
• Marter, Joan. "Dorothy Dehner," American National Biography. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, vol. 6, 350–51.
• Marter, Joan. "Dorothy Dehner," Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Marter, Joan, ed.-in-chief. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Art. Oxford and New York, 2011; "Dorothy Dehner," vol. 2, 32–33.

Catalogues and Publications

• Marter, Joan M., and Sophie Lachowsky. Dorothy Dehner: A Retrospective. Berry Campbell, New York, 2024. View publication → · Exhibition press release →
• Weeren-Griek, Hans. Introduction to Dorothy Dehner: Ten Years of Sculpture (1955–1965). The Jewish Museum, New York, 1965.
• Marter, Joan. Dorothy Dehner and David Smith: Their Decades of Search and Fulfillment (funded by the National Endowment for the Arts). Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University; Skidmore College Art Gallery, 1984.
• Marter, Joan. Essay for Dorothy Dehner and David Smith: Their Decades of Search and Fulfillment. Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 1984, 4–20.
• McCandless, Judith. "Dorothy Dehner: Life and Work," companion essay for Dorothy Dehner and David Smith: Their Decades of Search and Fulfillment, 1984.
• Wooden, Howard E. Essay for Dorothy Dehner: Recent Sculptures. Wichita Art Museum, 1985.
• Keane-White, Dorothy. Essay for Dorothy Dehner: Sculpture and Works on Paper. Twining Gallery, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, 1988.
• Teller, Susan. Dorothy Dehner: A Retrospective of Prints. Associated American Artists, New York, 1987.
• Marter, Joan, and Richard L. Eagan. Dorothy Dehner: Heroic Sculpture. Twining Gallery, New York, 1990.
• Marter, Joan, and Sandra Kraskin. Dorothy Dehner: A Retrospective of Sculpture, Drawings and Paintings. Baruch College / The City University of New York, 1991.
• Marter, Joan. Dorothy Dehner: Sixty Years of Art (funded by the National Endowment for the Arts). Katonah Museum of Art; The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1993–94.
• Marter, Joan. Essay for Dorothy Dehner: Sixty Years of Art. Seattle: University of Washington Press / Katonah Museum of Art, 1993, 5–15.
• Dreishpoon, Douglas. Introduction and essays for Between Transcendence and Brutality: American Sculptural Drawings from the 1940s and 1950s. Tampa Museum of Art; Arkansas Art Center; The Parrish Art Museum, 1994.
• Woodward, John B., III. Essay for Dorothy Dehner: Poetry of Line — A Retrospective of Work on Paper. Boulder Art Center, Boulder, CO, 1994.
• Glaubinger, Jane. Essay for Dorothy Dehner: Drawings, Prints, Sculpture (Joan Marter, co-curator). The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1995.
• Marter, Joan. Essay for Journeys, Dreams, and Realities. Baruch College Gallery, City University of New York, 1997, 3–8.
• Marter, Joan. "Identity Crisis: Abstract Expressionism and Women Artists of the 1950s," essay for Women and Abstract Expressionism: Painting and Sculpture, 1945–1959. Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, and Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY, 1997.
• Marter, Joan. Commentary for American Twentieth-Century Watercolors at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. Utica, NY, 2000.
• Marter, Joan. "Dorothy Dehner," Quaderni di Scultura Contemporanea. Matera: Museo della Scultura Contemporanea, 2006, 15–22.

Essays in Journals and Books

• McCandless, Judith. "Dorothy Dehner: Life-line in Sculpture." Whitney Museum Independent Study, Skidmore College, 1974.
• Dehner, Dorothy. "Memories of Jan Matulka," in Jan Matulka, 1890–1972. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1980, 77–80.
• Marter, Joan. "Dorothy Dehner," Women's Art Journal, vol. 1 (Fall 1980/Winter 1981), 47–50.
• Teller, Susan. Matulka's Class of '29. Susan Teller Gallery, 1987.
• Witzling, Mara R., ed. "Dorothy Dehner: Of Death and Life," in Voicing Today's Visions: Writings by Contemporary Women Artists. New York: Universe, 1994, 27.
• Glaubinger, Jane. "Exhibition: Dorothy Dehner," Members Magazine, The Cleveland Museum of Art, September 1995.
• Marter, Joan. "Initiating a Dorothy Dehner Catalogue Raisonné," Newsletter of the Catalogue Raisonné Scholars Association, vol. 5 (July 1996), 1–2.
• Thyssen, Esther T. "Bone Music #1: A Dehner Ideograph," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 1997–98, 69–75.
• Tornai, Esther Flora. "The Sculpture of Dorothy Dehner: The Abstract Expressionist Work." PhD diss., Yale University, 1999.
• Marter, Joan. "Arcadian Nightmares: The Evolution of David Smith and Dorothy Dehner's Work at Bolton Landing," in Reading Abstract Expressionism: Context and Critique, ed. Ellen G. Landau. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005, 633.
• Wisotzki, Paula. "Americans Abroad: The 1930s, Politics, and the Experience of Europe." Southwestern College Art Review XV, no. 5 (2010): 584–97.
• Wisotzki, Paula. "Dorothy Dehner and World War II: Not Just Life on the Farm." Archives of American Art Journal 55, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 5–25.

Selected Exhibition Reviews

• Mayham, Nellie. "With Brushes of Comet's Hair: Dorothy Dehner Smith," Warrensburg News, July 17, 1947.
• DeVree, Howard. "By Contemporaries: Recent Acquisitions at the Modern," The New York Times, May 11, 1952.
• Ashton, Dore. "Fifty-Seventh Street in Review: Dorothy Dehner," Art Digest 26, May 15, 1952, 19.
• Porter, Fairfield. "Reviews and Previews," Art News 54, May 1955, 50.
• Mellquist, Jerome R. "In the Galleries: Dorothy Dehner," Arts Magazine 31, May 1957, 51.
• "Recent Sculpture USA," Museum of Modern Art Bulletin 20, no. 3 (Spring 1959), 10.
• Campbell, Lawrence. "Reviews and Previews: Dorothy Dehner," Art News 59, November 1960, 16.
• Kramer, Hilton. The New York Times, November 19, 1966, 19.
• Marter, Joan. "Dorothy Dehner," Arts Magazine 53, March 1979, 4.
• Marter, Joan. "Dorothy Dehner," Sculpture, September–October 1988, 90–91.
• Demaline, Jackie. "Totemic Retrospective: Dehner Show Spans 60 Years," The Post-Star, Glens Falls, October 16, 1993.
• "Dorothy Dehner, 92, Sculptor With a Lyrically Surreal Style" (obituary), The New York Times, September 23, 1994, B-8.
• Protzman, Ferdinand. "David Smith's Better Half," The Washington Post, July 8, 1999.
• Brown, Bernard. "Dorothy Dehner: Bolton Landing's Contribution to Abstract Painting," The Lake George Mirror, February 25, 2011.
• Hall, Anthony F. "Dorothy Dehner at the Hyde: Life on the Farm and Beyond," The Lake George Mirror, February 2013.
• Cruse, Doug. "Second Exhibit Focuses on Modernist Work," The Post-Star, Glens Falls, March 9, 2013.

Archives and Research Aids

The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, holds a significant collection of Dehner's papers through 1987. Thanks to generous funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art, this entire collection has been digitized and is freely accessible online. A finding aid is available for researchers.

Storm King Art Center Archives holds two significant collections related to Dehner. The first, Dorothy Dehner: Photographs of Bolton Landing and David Smith (Record Group 2017-001), spans 1924–1945 and comprises three boxes of negative transparencies, mounted and unmounted prints, and Dehner's handwritten notes documenting the shared life of Dehner and David Smith at their Bolton Landing farm and New York City home. The second, Dorothy Dehner: Life on the Farm Paintings (Record Group 2017-002), comprises 18 paintings in egg tempera on masonite board, executed in a folk-art style and depicting rural life at Bolton Landing between 1940 and 1945. Both collections were acquired directly from the artist between 1978 and 1985.

The Dorothy Dehner Foundation for the Visual Arts also maintains archives for the artist, including photographs of the artist and her artwork. We make this collection available to scholars and researchers. For inquiries, please contact us.