Dusti Bonge Art Exhibit Now on Display at Biloxi's Creole Cottage

The Creole cottage on Biloxi's Rue Magnolia holds a collection of small jewels. Playing with color, contrast and form, the many untitled works of Dusti Bongè found in the Dusti Bongè Art Foundation are tantalizing glimpses into the world of an artist not well known outside the Coast.

In the 15 years since the foundation began, her works have been shared with several museums, including the Mississippi Museum of Art, The Ogden Museum in New Orleans, Mobile Museum of Art, the Walter Anderson Museum of Art and the Lauren Rogers Museum in Laurel. Bongè's art now has its own home at the Creole cottage, built circa 1830s to 1870, at 132 Rue Magnolia, just north of Mary Mahoney's. It originally sat at 127 Lameuse St., then was moved to be part of the Biloxi Public Library and was used for the offices of Main Street Biloxi.

"Dusti left about 1,500 works on paper, and most of them are smallish," said Martha Mabey, managing director. The small cottage displays some of those works on a rotating basis, along with other works. Currently, photographs by Bongè's son Lyle and grandson Paul are on exhibit.

Bongè (1903-1993) was born Eunice Lyle Swetman in Biloxi. The arts-minded Eunice moved to New York in 1923 to become an actress, adopting the stage name Dusti -- after graduating from college first, on her parents' insistence. In New York, she met Archibald Bongè, a young artist and Nebraska native who was working as a theater doorman. Their engagement and marriage captured the attention of the city's newspapers, which referred to her as "the banker's daughter."