Dorothy Morang had no formal art training but painted from the time she was a young child and even had select works pass juries for at least two shows in the local art museum in Portland Maine. She was also an accomplished musician earning a degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston. Dorothy married fellow artist Alfred Morang and they planned to stay in Maine however in 1937 Alfred was diagnosed with tuberculosis which necessitated a move to a dryer climate. They settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico where Dorothy became even more committed and energetic about her art. She studied with Raymond Johnson and Emil Bisttram and was considered an unofficial member of Bisttram's Transcendental Painting Group. In1940 she joined the Federal Art Project as an easel painter under the supervision of Vernon Hunter. By 1942 she started working at Museum of New Mexico becoming the curator of fine arts where she remained for over twenty years. Dorothy was considered the "most prominent and visible force in Santa Fe's art community." Her bold non-objective paintings were foreign to New Mexico and she defended them stating "what could be a more natural growth than the growth from abstraction which leaned somewhat on nature, to a complete and pure non-objectivism depending on nothing but pure painting values?" In 1949 she helped found the Santa Fe Women Artists Exhibiting Group. Dorothy was a progressive artist who's contribution to her art community was invaluable.

Awards: New Mexico State Fair, 1949; Museum of New Mexico, 1953, 1956; National League of American Pen Women, 1953.

Exhibited: Panoras Gallery, New York; Contemporary Art Gallery, Pennsylvania; Guggenheim Museum, 1944 & 1945, New York.

Works Held: Museum, New Mexico; Canyon Texas Museum - Exhibited at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (1940's), Museum of New Mexico, & the University of New Mexico.

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