Dorothea Henrietta Denslow was born on December 14, 1900, in New York City, to parents Cornelia Julia (née Smith) and
Henry Carey Denslow. Her father was a bird
taxidermist, and painter who worked as a natural history curator at the
Brooklyn Children's Museum, and she art studied under him. At age fourteen she started exhibiting her artwork. She was partly raised in
Hartford, Connecticut, and in 1923, she was a member of the Connecticut Academy Fine Arts. Denslow attended the
Art Students League of New York. In 1928, Denslow founded the Clay Club (later known as the
SculptureCenter), which was her studio and it was also used as a meeting space and young artists workshop founded at 1841/2 Brooklyn Ave. in
Brooklyn, initially in the basement of the Brooklyn Children's Museum. She often taught sculpture to teenagers. Her former students, and Clay Club-affiliated artists included
Elsa Hutzler,
Muriel Kelsey,
George Gerny,
Howard Mandel,
Nina Winkel,
Yvonne Forrest,
Frank Eliscu,
Harry Holtzman, and
Ibram Lassaw. Denslow also taught classes at the Art Students League of New York. At the time of her retirement in 1962, the Clay Club had some seventy-two cats living there. Towards the end of her life she lived in
Mountainhome, Pennsylvania. Denslow died at the age of 70 on April 26, 1971, in a hospital in
East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. == References ==