Six Degrees of Separation

Six Degrees of Separation is an art history take on the party game of the same name. The point of both is to trace an unlikely series of relationships to reach a final, surprising person. For example, Otis Dozier exhibited in 1936 with Jerry Bywaters. Bywaters became Director of the Dallas Museum of Art and in 1947 he gave an artist named Ben Culwell a solo show. The same year Culwell showed at the MoMA in New York with the Abstract Expressionist, Robert Motherwell. In 1978, Motherwell showed a single, large painting alongside a piece by Alexander Calder. Decades before, Calder had a piece at the 1937 World’s Fair next to Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. All six artists are represented in our Permanent Collection.