The Dallas Woman's Forum

The Dallas Woman's Forum's headquarters in Dallas

Allie Tennant enjoyed a close association with the Dallas Woman's Forum during the early years of her career.The forum had been established in 1906 as Dallas’s first “department” women’s club, which meant that its membership belonged to one or more different sections according to their interests. The art department was one of these divisions.Tennant’s art teacher, Dallas artist Vivian Aunspaugh, became in 1909 the person who arranged the programs of the Woman’s Forum art department, a paid position she would hold for over twenty years. This was likely the reason by a young Allie Tennant became involved in the art department. In 1911 the Forum decided to hold an annual exhibition of Texas paintings “as part of the organization’s educational offering and to give encouragement to young aspiring artists as well as recognition to those who had already achieved success.” This annual show became a major art event for Dallas for over a decade thereafter. Tennant’s first venue for showing her art publicly took place at the one of Forum’s annual art exhibitions.

Allie Tennant Hosts an Art Fundraiser, 1957

Allie Tennant was active for many decades in her support of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. In 1957 the Dallas Museum League sponsored a bus tour to raise money during which donors could tour studios of female artists including Allie Tennant, Evaline Sellors, Vivian Aunspaugh, and several others. On a Sunday afternoon in October, those participating were whisked around Dallas by bus, including a stop at Tennant’s studio on Live Oak Street. The Dallas Morning News featured a photograph of the participants walking along the fence in front of Tennant’s studio as they made their way inside. This studio tour proved to be a very successful event for the museum in terms of raising funds. It raised almost $2,000 and the organizers reported “the tour was far more successful than they had anticipated.”