Orcenith Lyle Bongé (1929 - 2009)

Photo by David Houston

The Ogden Museum is mourning the loss of a talented artist, great Southerner, friend to the Museum, and just a damn fine human being. Lyle Bongé passed away in his hometown of Biloxi on Monday, December 7, 2009.

Father Orcenith Lyle Bongé, a courtly citizen of Harrison County,
God-Hep-Us-Mississippi, is the signal representative of a wild eyed,
smooth-talking tribe who could charm the skin off a snake. -- Jonathan
Williams

Born in 1929, Lyle was the son of painters Archie and Dusti Bongé. Dusti was a native of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and that state's first true Modernist painter. Walter Anderson was the best man at their wedding. Lyle attended several schools including University of Southern Mississippi, University of Mexico, and the short-lived but highly influential Black Mountain College in North Carolina. He served two years in the Korean War, where he ran a darkroom. He began his career in photography after returning home to Biloxi in the early 50s. Over a span of thirty years beginning in 1955, Lyle amassed over forty-thousand negatives from shooting Mardi Gras in New Orleans. He is also known for his photo-abstractions. An accomplished sailor, he broke the world's record for single-handed cross-Gulf passage under sail in 1968. He wrote cookbooks, was a tree-topper, bank director and landlord. He also created metal sculpture.


In the foreword to The Photographs of Lyle Bongé (Jargon Society, 1982), A.D. Coleman said, "[T]here are many sides to Lyle Bongé, and a plethora of strange and curious tales to be told by and about him." No doubt the stories will continue to be told and told again about this rare gem of Zen-boho bodacity native to the Mississippi coast.


In the clipping below from a late-40s Black Mountain College's student newspaper, a young Lyle Bongé is described thusly:

He has red hair and sports a "French" mustache. He is noted for wearing a monocle on his left eye. This adds to his distinction greatly. Lyle possesses some strange but amusing hobbies. He collects skulls (from old graveyards) and animal skulls in the woods. To prove his statement that he loves "danger as a stimulant," he once lived in New York on $1.50 and a bottle of stimulant. He ate only one meal a day and that was with friends. Another hobby is sailing alone in a storm in his boat. Others include travelling, writing prose and poetry and he loves all modern art forms.

Black Mountain Student Paper
Circa 1948


A portfolio of four of Lyle's mescaline-influenced photographs titled "The Search for Vision" was included in Aperture 6:3, under the direction of Minor White. The Jargon Society published two books of his photographs, The Sleep of Reason: Lyle Bonge's Ultimate Ash-Hauling Mardi Gras Photographs (1974) and The Photographs of Lyle Bongé (1982). His photographic works are included in the permanent collections of the Mississippi Museum of Art, the George Eastman House, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Pensacola Art Museum, the Historic New Orleans Collection and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. His sculptures have been exhibited at Loyola University in New Orleans and the George Ohr Museum in Biloxi.

Lyle Bonge's Ultimate Ash Hauling Photographs

Copyright 1964 Lyle Bonge. Untitled gelatin silver print.

" If you can kill a snake with it, it aint art." -- Lyle Bonge

Photo by David Houston.

Lyle Bonge started taking photographs in his hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi. In the late 1940s, Bonge studies at the short-lived but highly influential Black Mountain College, where he roomed with famed essayist/poet/publisher Jonathan Williams. Since 1955, Bonge has amassed over 40,000 negatives of Mardi Gras, some of which were published in Jargon Press' 1977 publication of his photographs, The Sleep of Reason: Lyle Bonge's Ultimate Ash Hauling Photographs. His works are contained in private and public collections, including the Mississippi Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Pensacola Art Museum and, of course, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He still lives in the Biloxi house built by his mother and father, artists Dusti and Archie Bonge. Dusti was Mississippi's first true Modernist, showing at Betty Parson's Gallery in the late 50s. Beyond his career as a photographer, Lyle has been a boat builder, bank director and tree topper.

Walter Anderson's Wedding Gift

Shearwater Vase by Walter Inglis Anderson circa 1927

Collection of the Dusti Bonge Foundation
Photo by Richard McCabe

Walter Anderson (1903 - 1965) met Archie Bonge (1901 - 1936) while attending the Pennsylvania Acadamy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1928. Archie, a 6'7" cowboy from Nebraska, spent a single semester at the acadamy before moving to New York. There, he found some success as a painter (selling a nude for $1000) and fell in love with Dusti Swetman, a young actress from Biloxi, Mississippi. In 1927, Archie and Dusti were married. Walter Anderson was the best man at their wedding, wearing a suit and tie with sneakers. The Shearwater vase pictured above was created by Walter and given as a wedding gift to the young couple.

Archie and Dusti had one child, Lyle, in 1929, ending Dusti's theatre and film career. The couple moved to a cottage in Biloxi in 1934. Walter Anderson married his wife, Sissy, in 1933, and the two couples were close friends in those years. Archie died suddenly in 1936. Walter entered the mental hospital for the first time in 1937. After the death of her husband, Dusti began painting with his brushes, becoming Mississippi's first true modernist, exhibiting her work alongside the leading Abstract Expressionist painters of the 50s at the important Betty Parson's Gallery in New York.

Untitled oil on canvas by Dusti Bonge, 1938

Collection of Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Gift of the Dusti Bonge Foundation

The wedding vase is currently on display at the Ogden, along with 17 Walter Anderson watercolors from the collection of Wesley and Norman Galen. Also, Dusti Bonge's untitled 1938 abstract oil on canvas (pictured above) is on display on the 4th floor. For more on Walter Anderson and Shearwater pottery, read Dreaming in Clay on the Coast of Mississippi: Love and Art at Shearwater and Fortune's Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson, both by Chistopher Maurer, available in the Museum Store.