Dorothy Browdy Kushner

Dorothy Browdy Kushner was born on March 20, 1909, in Kansas City, Missouri. During high school, she won a prize for art in a state competition at the University of Missouri in 1926. She graduated from Kansas City Teacher’s College in 1928, and began teaching in an elementary school. In Kansas City, she taught at the Scarritt Elementary School and at Paseo High School. She continued her education at the Kansas City Art Institute, and also studied under Thomas Hart Benton.

During the summer she traveled with her sister Esther to other cities to continue their studies in art. They attended the Art Students League in New York, where Dorothy studied with Reginald Marsh. They also attended the University of Kansas, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and The Art Institute of Chicago. There they studied with Irving K. Manoir.

In 1937 and 1938, Kushner attended Columbia University in New York City and received her master's of art in 1938. Dorothy returned to Kansas City and taught there for two years. In 1940, she moved to New York, where she taught at Grover Cleveland High School. 

After getting married in December 1946, she moved to California. There she continued to paint and joined other women abstract painters who called themselves The Group. They met monthly to review each other’s work from 1955 to 1972.

In the 1960s, Kushner returned to teaching at Pasadena City College, Rio Hondo College and Orange Coast College. 

Dorothy Browdy Kushner died on April 5, 2000, in Brooklyn, New York.