Linda Ridgway
American, b. 1947
Born in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Linda spent summers living and working at her grandmother’s farm in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. At her father’s side, she learned how to create “lines of determination” - planting, growing, changing - from seed to plant to corn. Those days often ended with her mother reading to her from her favorite poets: Frost, Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. The lines of poetry, planted by her mother’s reading, would later become the sparks that kindled her art. Linda began her college studies on a full scholarship at the Louisville School of Art in Anchorage, Kentucky. After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts, she was offered a full scholarship and teaching assistantship at Tulane University in New Orleans. Originally focused on printmaking, she also explored sculpting and mixed media, and completed her graduate work with a Masters in Fine Arts. Inspired by the teachers who had recognized and encouraged her talent and passion for art, Linda moved to Dallas and began her dual career…as artist and teacher. Following her own “lines of determination”, she continued to experiment with a variety of media. In 1985, while visiting her brother, she saw an exhibition of the works of sculptor Alberto Giacometti at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington D.C. His ability to convert drawings into bronze transformed the use of that medium, giving it an ephemeral, evaporative quality never seen before. That experience had a profound impact on Linda, and as a result, her work took a new direction. With the sophistication and complexity of a woman who came of age during the women’s movement of the 1970s, she returned to Dallas and began working in bronze, creating works of art inspired by poetry and nature, cultivated with passion and a new commitment. Influenced by the artists Eva Hesse and Agnes Martin, Linda’s minimalist work reveals a fluid and flowing softness that captures both the strength and delicacy of life. Linda was the 1999 recipient of the Art League Houston’s Texas Artist of the Year award and the 2001 Dallas Legend Award. She has taught art for the Dallas County Community College District for over 30 years, and has received both the Minnie Stevens Piper Award for superior teaching at the college level and the DCCCD’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Linda is widely recognized for her poetic sculptures in bronze. Working across various media, Ridgway creates an evocative symbolic language using forms found in nature as well as domestic textiles. While her works reflect personal experiences and often allude to specific poems or works of literature, they also contemplate enduring questions of memory, womanhood, tradition, and ephemerality. Often ethereal in their delicacy and their inclusion of impermanent organic material, her works question accepted understandings of nature and femininity, and their connected cultural associations. Gestural lines, fine detail, and organic forms create a sense of intimacy and reveal the influence of post-minimalism.
Throughout her career, Linda Ridgway’s sculptures, drawings, and prints have been featured in more than thirty solo exhibitions as well as a number of important group exhibitions. The artist’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the Dallas Museum of Art; the El Paso Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Old Jail Art Center; Albany, Texas; and the Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas. Ridgway currently lives and works in Dallas, Texas.
Source: Talley Dunn Gallery
American, b. 1947
Born in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Linda spent summers living and working at her grandmother’s farm in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. At her father’s side, she learned how to create “lines of determination” - planting, growing, changing - from seed to plant to corn. Those days often ended with her mother reading to her from her favorite poets: Frost, Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. The lines of poetry, planted by her mother’s reading, would later become the sparks that kindled her art. Linda began her college studies on a full scholarship at the Louisville School of Art in Anchorage, Kentucky. After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts, she was offered a full scholarship and teaching assistantship at Tulane University in New Orleans. Originally focused on printmaking, she also explored sculpting and mixed media, and completed her graduate work with a Masters in Fine Arts. Inspired by the teachers who had recognized and encouraged her talent and passion for art, Linda moved to Dallas and began her dual career…as artist and teacher. Following her own “lines of determination”, she continued to experiment with a variety of media. In 1985, while visiting her brother, she saw an exhibition of the works of sculptor Alberto Giacometti at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington D.C. His ability to convert drawings into bronze transformed the use of that medium, giving it an ephemeral, evaporative quality never seen before. That experience had a profound impact on Linda, and as a result, her work took a new direction. With the sophistication and complexity of a woman who came of age during the women’s movement of the 1970s, she returned to Dallas and began working in bronze, creating works of art inspired by poetry and nature, cultivated with passion and a new commitment. Influenced by the artists Eva Hesse and Agnes Martin, Linda’s minimalist work reveals a fluid and flowing softness that captures both the strength and delicacy of life. Linda was the 1999 recipient of the Art League Houston’s Texas Artist of the Year award and the 2001 Dallas Legend Award. She has taught art for the Dallas County Community College District for over 30 years, and has received both the Minnie Stevens Piper Award for superior teaching at the college level and the DCCCD’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Linda is widely recognized for her poetic sculptures in bronze. Working across various media, Ridgway creates an evocative symbolic language using forms found in nature as well as domestic textiles. While her works reflect personal experiences and often allude to specific poems or works of literature, they also contemplate enduring questions of memory, womanhood, tradition, and ephemerality. Often ethereal in their delicacy and their inclusion of impermanent organic material, her works question accepted understandings of nature and femininity, and their connected cultural associations. Gestural lines, fine detail, and organic forms create a sense of intimacy and reveal the influence of post-minimalism.
Throughout her career, Linda Ridgway’s sculptures, drawings, and prints have been featured in more than thirty solo exhibitions as well as a number of important group exhibitions. The artist’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the Dallas Museum of Art; the El Paso Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Old Jail Art Center; Albany, Texas; and the Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas. Ridgway currently lives and works in Dallas, Texas.
Source: Talley Dunn Gallery
Artist Objects
Artist Images