[from the series “Homework: Photographs from Taos, New Mexico”]
The Pollock Gallery of the Division of Art at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts will present EMERITA: A retrospective of Debora Hunter and Mary Vernon, an exhibition featuring works by the two recently retired SMU art professors, from September 7 to October 20, 2018. This two-person retrospective honors their collective 90-year contribution to the Meadows School, exhibiting work from the 1970s to the present.
Filmmaker Christian Vasquez went behind the scenes with Vernon and Hunter to hear the inspiration behind the work’s featured in the exhibit–and the lifetime that’s gone into it.
About the artists:
Debora Hunter, professor emerita of art, joined the SMU faculty in 1976 after earning a B.A. in English literature from Northwestern University and an M.F.A. in photography from Rhode Island School of Design, where she worked with Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind and the visiting faculty of Minor White and Lisette Model. In her more than four decades of teaching at SMU she guided the Division of Art in the transition from chemical-based to digital photography. She also taught for over 20 years in SMU-in-Taos. Read more
Mary Vernon, professor emerita of art in Meadows School of the Arts, joined SMU in 1967 after earning her B.F.A. in art history and M.A. in art and art history from the University of New Mexico. She served as chair of art history from 1979 to 1981 and chair of art from 1987 to 1995. Her drawing, painting and color theory courses fostered the careers of countless successful artists and curators. She was named Meadows Foundation Distinguished Teaching Professor in 1998, Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor in 2006 and received the Faculty Career Achievement Award in 2017. Read more
