UNCW’s CAB Art Gallery Presents: “Dorothy Gillespie: Portraits and Self-Portraits”

University of North Carolina Wilmington’s “Dorothy Gillespie: Portraits and Self-Portraits” will open in UNCW’s Cultural Arts Building Art Gallery with a public reception on Thursday, May 18, 2023 from 5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m. 

The exhibition will run through Friday, September 1, 2023. Summer gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and closed on Fridays. The CAB Art Gallery is located in the UNCW Cultural Arts Building, 5270 Randall Drive, Wilmington, NC 28403. 

UNCW’s CAB Art Gallery is partnering with the Dorothy Gillespie Foundation and the Radford University Art Museum, to showcase portraits and self-portraits by 20th century American Artist, Dorothy Gillespie. This one-of-a-kind exhibition is an opportunity to view never before seen Dorothy Gillespie portraits and self-portraits. 

Dorothy Gillespie was well known as a painter, sculptor, and installation artist whose work encompassed many significant 20th-century trends in art, including abstract expressionism, decorative abstraction, site-specific installations, the women's movement, and art in public spaces. She pioneered joyful new directions for metal sculpture and is best known for large-scale, colorfully painted arrangements of cut aluminum strips that radiate, undulate, or curl like giant arrangements of ribbon, enchanted towers, or bursting fireworks. 

On display will be portraits of Gillespie’s colleagues and friends, along with many unseen self-portraits, and the iconic aluminum sculpture, "Summer Jazz", inspired by many visits to see "Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway. 

In conjunction with the CAB Art Gallery’s Dorothy Gillespie: Portraits and Self-Portraits exhibition, Cape Fear Community College’s Wilma W. Daniels Gallery will host an exhibition, Dorothy Gillespie, featuring a retrospective of her artworks, beginning May 12 - August 25, 2023. 

Other Gillespie artworks will also be exhibited around the Wilmington area throughout the summer of 2023. Art in Bloom Gallery will have original Gillespie artworks on view and available for purchase. Additional venues showcasing Gillespie artworks from May through August, as part of their permanent art collections are: The Arboretum, the Cameron Art Museum, Thalian Hall, and the Wilson Center. A brochure is available at these locations with more information regarding the artworks being shown at these venues.