Mid Century
Mary Frances Doyle, a painter, teacher and silk-screen graphic artist in abstract styles, was born in Stephenville, Texas in 1904. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1930 from Southwest Texas State Teachers College, San Marcos, after her attendance at John Tarleton Agricultural College in Stephenville. Doyle did graduate work with Charles J. Martin at Columbia University, New York City, prior to gaining her M. A. degree in 1948 from Texas State College for Women, Denton. Her extensive studies continued at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts School with Octavio Medellin and Otis Dozier, and in summer art schools with Kenneth Loomis, Xavier Gonzalez, Barse Miller and Ernest Freed.
Doyle was education director for the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, and had a very long teaching career in the Dallas public schools from 1935-72. Following her retirement, Doyle moved to San Antonio, then to Denton where she now lives.
Mary Doyle was a charter member of the Texas Printmakers, formed in the early 1940s by several women artists. Her other memberships include the Arlington Art Association; Dallas Art Education Club; Dallas Print Society; and Texas Fine Arts Association.
Her work is found in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, St. Mark's School, and Southern Methodist University, all in Dallas; Texas Woman's University, Denton; Torch Energy Advisors, Inc., Houston; Longview Museum and Art Center; Idaho State University, Pocatello; Kansas State University, Manhattan; and New Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas.
Doyle's exhibitions include:
Annual Allied Arts Exhibition, Dallas (1938, 1940, 1945);
Women Artists of Dallas County, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (1938);
All-West Texas Exhibition, Abilene Museum of Fine Arts (1946);
Texas General Exhibition (1946);
Texas Painting and Sculpture Annual Exhibition (1952-53);
Texas Fine Arts Association (1951-52, 1957-58);
Annual Texas Artists Circuit Exhibition (1952, 1954-55);
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (1958 one-woman);
Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin (1958 one-woman);
Texas Printmakers, 1940-1965, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas (1990);
Hock Shop Collection: Rediscovering Texas Artists of the Past, Center for the Visual Arts, Denton (1998);
Arlington Art Association;
Annual Exhibition of the State Fair of Texas, Dallas;
Stephen F. Austin College, Nacogdoches;
Art Association of New Orleans;
Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans;
Boston Printmakers Annual Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;
National Creative Graphics Show (award), Burr Galleries, New York.
Clipping files, correspondence, photographs, and works of art on paper from the Mary Doyle Collection are held in the Jerry Bywaters Wing at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.