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In This Issue
Chair's Comments
Executive Director's Comments
12th Symposium & Art Fair
Feature
ETA Exhibitions & Events & Items of Interest
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Membership Levels:
Student/Educator: $25
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Individual: $50
Institutional: $150

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Contributor: $250
Benefactor: $500

   Patron: $1,000
Investor: $2500
                  & above 

Contact Information
Board Chair

Tam Kiehnhoff 
tamsenk.k@gmail.com

Executive Director

Howard Taylor caseta@samfa.org
 
Administrator
 
Valerie C. Bluthardt
caseta@samfa.org  
 

CASETA Headquarters

PO Box 3726 

San Angelo TX 76902
Phone: 325.212.4872  

CASETA Fun Facts & Fundamentals!

CASETA 
Mission Statement

  The mission of the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art is to promote the preservation, study and appreciation of Texas visual arts and its history. Read more about our mission.

  

Early Texas Art

 

Art produced by artists who were born in and/or lived and worked in Texas through 40 years prior to the present date. 

   ___________________ 

   
Since the first CASETA symposium in 2003, over 1500 people, from graduate students, academics, and collectors have wandered the convention sites, enriching their mind as they learn more about Texas art and CASETA itself. 

 

 ___________________

 

The range of speakers over the past twelve years, totaling approximately ninety-five since this event's inception, has included notable historians, curators, collectors, dealers, and professors. Although most are from Texas, some travel from places as far away as New York City and Maine. Some represent themselves, while others work with prestigious institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, City University of New York, the University of North Texas and the Dallas Museum of Art, to name a few. 
___________________

 

On January 18, 2003, CASETA sponsored a lecture entitled The Altars and Facades of the San Antonio Missions, given by Dr. Jacinto Quirarte at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

 

__________________

 

Through the archival project, CASETA has partnered with seventeen institutions willing to receive these archival materials including:

 

*Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin

 

* C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department, University Library, University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP)

 

* Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University

 

* Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

 

* Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

 

* University of North Texas

 

* Jerry Bywaters Special Collections Wing, Southern Methodist University

 

* Tyler Museum of Fine Arts

 

* The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

 

* Old Jail Art Center

 

* Rosenberg Library

 

* San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

 

* San Antonio Public Library

 

* South Texas Institute for the Arts

 

* Southwest Collection
Collections Libraries, Texas Tech University

*The West Texas Collection, Angelo State University 

 

* Witte Museum

 

___________________

 

Through a grant from the Texas Education Agency, CASETA sponsored four workshops for teachers to introduce them to Early Texas Art and worked alongside NTIEVA.

 

In total, seventy-two educators participated in these workshops. Each participant was given an orientation to the units as well as received a copy of each unit along with support material that included exhibition catalogs and CDs about Early Texas Art. These programs and materials were meant to enrich the classroom experience and further the knowledge of Early Texas Art.

  

___________________

 

CASETA has been the recipient of several prestigious grants over its lifetime,

which allows it to participate in numerous activities. To date, CASETA has received over $200,000 from several prestigious organizations. This money has been used for various publications, lectures, the symposia, and workshops throughout the state.

  

___________________

  

************ 

  

Congratulations to all of the 2014 CASETA award winners!

  

Lifetime Achievement

-Dr. Ron Tyler 

 

Distinguished Service

-Stephen Alton 

  

Outstanding Publications

Emma Richardson Cherry: Houston's First Modern Artist

-Houston Public Library

  

 Loren Mozley:

Structural Integrity

-The McKinney Avenue Contemporary  

  

Outstanding Exhibitions

Porfirio Salinas: Capturing South Texas on Canvas

-The Witte Museum  

  

 Texas Regionalism

-Amon Carter Museum of American Art    

 
************ 

12th Annual Symposium and Texas Art Fair

SPONSORS


 Platinum

Bill and Mary Cheek

Bill and Cynthia Gayden

Heritage Auctions

Bobbie and John Nau

Sid W. Richardson Foundation

Still Water Foundation

  

Gold

Charlie and Alice Adams

Judy and Stephen Alton

Jim and Jill Cochran

David Dike Fine Art

The Estate of Kelly Fearing

Mark and Geralyn Kever

Ted and Sharon Lusher

Kathryn and Morris Matson

in memory of

Dana Kay Matson

George and Beverly Palmer

Bill and Linda Reaves

Jason Schoen

Sam and Juliana Stevens

Robert and Hillary Summers

TACO - Texas Art Collectors Organization

Howard and Becca Taylor

Whistle Pik Galleries - Dr. Tim and Pamela Taylor

   

Silver

Art Conservation Services - Dennis Baltuskonis

Scott Chase

The D. Jack and Gail C. Davis Charitable Fund

Tom and Tam Kiehnhoff

Nancy and Ted Paup

Lee and Candyce Pfluger

Stan Price

Patricia and Jeffrey Sone

Ben and Beverly Stribling

Randy Tibbits and

Rick Bebermeyer

  

Bronze

Claude Albritton

Bonnie Campbell

Capital Fine Art - Jim Bollemeyer

Gentry Custom Frames - David Gentry

HETAG - Houston Earlier Texas Art Group

Marshall Meece

Pete and Lesley Schlumberger

Russell Tether Fine Arts

  

  ___________________ 


 2014 Texas Art Fair Participants  

   

Beuhler Fine Art

San Antonio

210.288.6544

 

Charles Morin's Vintage

Texas Paintings

San Antonio

210.368.9314

 

David Dike Fine Art

Dallas 

214.720.4044

 

Heritage Auctions

Dallas

214.409.1786

 

Cliff Logan Art & Antiques

Austin

512.328.1749

 

Rainone Galleries

Arlington

817.461.5666

 

Robert Alker Fine Art

Houston

713.762.9040

 

William Reaves Fine Art

Houston

713.521.7500

 

Bookseller John St. Clair 

Austin 

    

NEWSLETTER
July 2014
                           CHAIR'S COMMENTS
Tam Kiehnhoff 

 

    CASETA LOOKS FORWARD
   TO NEW PROJECTS AND
     NEW BOARD MEMBERS 
 
 

I hope that this newsletter finds you happily engaged in arts- and fun-related summer planning. For us at CASETA, the summer is simply a continuation of work on the good things we hope to bring to you in the upcoming year. In order to accomplish this, we have had a busy and productive spring.

  

CASETA Retreat at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts on March 29th 

First, our Long Range Planning and Development Committee met in San Angelo in March with Board members as well as external CASETA members in attendance. Howard Taylor, Valerie Bluthardt and the staff and community of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts welcomed us with a presentation by Michael Grauer to accompany the museum's early Texas art exhibition, Soul of the Frontier: The Paintings of H.W. Caylor. We also joined members of the local community at a delightful dinner hosted by Lee and Candyce Pfluger of San Angelo. Our mission for the weekend was to identify and prioritize the projects and initiatives on which we will focus our attentions in the next 2 to 3 years. There was enthusiastic engagement and strong consensus around the table for strengthening our website, enhancing our educational efforts especially with younger audiences, and increasing our presence and our visibility around the state. We had specific and productive discussions about the logistical challenges and potential solutions to achieve these goals.

 

Immediately following the planning weekend an anonymous donor offered CASETA a $10,000 matching grant in order to carry out some of the high priority recommendations that came out of the planning group. I am gratified to report that by the closing session of our symposium we had reached and exceeded the $10,000 match and are currently working hard on the specific projects we have targeted with our proposal. Stay tuned as we roll out upgrades and improvements to the website, regional CASETA events and a named CASETA scholarship for studies in early Texas art.

 

Next, we held a wonderful and successful Austin Symposium. For a full report see the article below. Let me just say that, even with a new staff and a new venue, the event went off without a hitch. I want to especially thank sponsors, speakers, dealers, staff, board, volunteers and our enthusiastic attendees for making our time in Austin a fascinating, visually exciting and stimulating weekend. Our Special Events hosts, Ali James at the State Capitol and Robert and Hillary Summers and David Spradling and Lisa Harvell in their fantastic art-focused homes also made the weekend both welcoming and inspiring. 

Since the symposium we have been hard at work addressing vacancies on the CASETA Board. I am pleased to announce that we have added four new members to the Board. They represent an exciting diversity of home locales, backgrounds, skills and interests and if you are not yet acquainted with them you will find their bios on the website in the next month as part of our website reconstruction. They are: Danielle Burns, Jill Cochran, Noe Perez and Dr. Ron Tyler.   

 

And finally, we are visiting sites in the Houston area as we begin planning for the 2015 Symposium. We challenge ourselves this year, as we do every year, to make the next event the strongest and most exciting event yet.

 

Thanks again to every one of you for your passion for early Texas art and for your willingness to pitch in as we move forward with our mission to promote and preserve the art we love and its history.

 

Have a wonderful summer,

Tam Kiehnhoff

CASETA Chair

        EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S COMMENTS
Howard Taylor
Howard Taylor  

  

                A FAST PACED YEAR

 It has been barely a year since the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts became the operational headquarters for CASETA. As is the case in a period of intensely busy activity the time has seemed to go by very rapidly. The recent annual symposium held in Austin was a vigorous test how well we were doing and some of the behind-the-scenes efforts we have made to make that event more efficient and pleasant for all. Among the many subtle but important details were things such as increased signage and way finding including flags that showed the path from the entrance at the St. Edward's University all the way to the building where the symposium was held. CASETA's

new Administrator, Valerie Bluthardt, is a particularly devoted, intelligent and energetic person. Before, throughout and after the symposium she was on duty from beginning to end and worked diligently to make everyone feel welcome and to assist them in any way possible. She also managed to enlist the support of her husband, Bob, who is the director of Fort Concho National Historic Landmark. Bob put in many hours on our behalf including doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes.

 

The experience of managing the symposium for the first time gave me a much greater appreciation of all the devoted people over the years who have endeavored to make this such an outstanding event. In the public comments I made at the symposium I noted that CASETA has a distinctive organizational culture that fosters camaraderie and friendship in addition to being a forum for learning more about early Texas art. I also noted that there was, among some of our participants, an element of competitiveness as they vied to add significant new works of art to their collections. Even that I noted occurred in an atmosphere of congeniality. The art dealers who exhibited at the symposium were all a delight to work with and the exhibition space was exciting to be in with numerous outstanding works on display and as many people learned some real discoveries to be found.

 

I would like to offer a special thank you to my friend and colleague, Ali James, for all she did in assisting us with the art handling, putting together visitor packets, setting the tone with her welcoming address and providing an insightful tour of the collections of the Texas State Capitol. Robert and Hillary Summers and David Spradling and Lisa Harvell were wonderful and generous hosts opening their homes and collections for special behind-the-scene tours.

 

During the symposium our Board Chair, Tam Kiehnhoff, announced an anonymous challenge grant of $10,000 that would assist CASETA in enhancing its value for members and communities across the state. Before the symposium ended a number of donors came forward and the challenge was met.  

 

This past year, under the dynamic leadership of Tam Kiehnhoff and our Board of Directors, and with input from major supporters we developed plans to greatly expand our efforts beyond the annual symposium. In the year ahead we will be working to enhance our website, add social media and undertake youth education and outreach programming in communities across the state. The challenge grant and matching funding will provide the necessary support for these initiatives and also allow us to engage a university student intern to assist our administrator. We are looking forward to another exciting year that will also certainly be one of dynamic growth for CASETA. It will be a lot of work but I feel just as this past year it will fly by.

 

Sincerely,

 

Howard Taylor

Executive Director  

CASETA  

and 

Director

San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

  

        12th Annual Symposium and Texas Art Fair
 a Success!



The 12th Annual Symposium took place in the Ragsdale Center on the beautiful campus of St. Edward's University May 2 - 4, 2014 with 145 attending. The Texas Art Fair was a busy venue throughout the week-end with much offered by eight art dealers and one book seller. The event kicked off Friday evening, May 2, with a grand keynote speech by Curator of the Capitol, Ali James, who shared our state's history through the richness of the State Capitol's collections. Saturday, May 3, was a full day of engaging presentations by speakers on a wide range of topics along with a three person panel of conservators sharing ideas on how to take the very best care of your art.

 

Victoria Cummins was one of six speakers who shared
 their knowledge on early Texas Art 

 

Attendees learned tips on how to care for your art objects from the conservators (l to r) Catherine Williams, Mark E. van Gelder, and Cheryl A. Carrabba on a panel moderated by Bill Reaves 

 

2014 TX Art Fair
The Texas Art Fair was a popular place  
to be throughout the week-end 

 

The last Saturday session was the annual meeting with CASETA Awards being given out to several deserving persons and institutions which you can read about in more detail here.   

 

2014 Award winners
Dr. Ron Tyler, left, received the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award and Stephen Alton, right, was the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award

 

Saturday evening found attendees touring the State Capitol and getting behind-the-scene tours of delightful private collections in the homes of Robert and Hillary Summers and David Spradling and Lisa Harvell. The three day event ended Sunday with two final presentations, the much anticipated raffle drawings, and one last chance to make a purchase at the Texas Art Fair.

 

Evening home tours
Cheri Hamilton, Derrek Aaron, and Anthony Kalbfus (l to r) at the evening home tours which were an opportunity to view  
two of the best private art collections in Austin   

Through the generous support of scholarships from the Sid Richardson Foundation of Fort Worth and a San Angelo donor CASETA was pleased to have students and educators from institutions of higher learning again participating in the Symposium this year. The four Sid Richardson Grant scholars were Mary Brantl and Hollis Hammonds, both art faculty members from St. Edward's University; Eric Franke, art teacher at Warren High School in San Antonio; and Amy Lambert of Austin, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. The three scholars, all from Angelo State University in San Angelo, were Dr. Kimberly Busby, art faculty member, Andre Handy and Rebecca Saavedra, both undergraduates.

 

It was exciting to hear about future plans for the 2014-15 Matching Grant and as always those attending took the opportunity to gain knowledge about early Texas art, re-acquaint with old friends, and meet new friends who share in the passion of early Texas art. We look forward to the 2015 Symposium and Texas Art Fair in Houston and will send out details at a later date.

 

Along with the photos showing just a few of the moments during the Symposium and Art Fair we also want to thank Jason Rose, editor of American Fine Art Magazine for including coverage on the event in a fine article published in the July/August issue. You can read the AFAM article by clicking on the link below.  

 

 

 Engaging Week-end with CASETA 

 

Article courtesy American Fine Art Magazine  



Raffle Funds and Pledges to Support Matching Grant
 

An exciting addition to this year's Symposium was a raffle of artwork with the funds raised used to meet the anonymous donation for the 2014-2015 Matching Grant. The Estate of Kelly Fearing through Mr. Charles Smith graciously donated a beautiful 13" x 10" work entitled, Saint Rose, which Kelly Fearing drew with conte crayon on cameo paper in 1956 in Austin.  

 

Mark and Geralyn Kever made the raffle even more exciting by donating an untitled work by artist Ethel Spears from the 1930s.

 

Those who participated in the raffle had the option of buying tickets at $20 a piece or six for $100. One hundred seven tickets were sold and raised $1,860. The drawing was done on Sunday, May 4, just before the close of the Symposium. The lucky prize winners of the two works were Bobbie Nau of Houston whose name was pulled for the Kelly Fearing work. New CASETA member Kathy Rosenthal of Fort Worth went home with the Ethel Spears' work. Thanks to CASETA Board member David Spradling and Chair Tam Kiehnhoff for coordinating the raffle and to all those who purchased tickets.

 

Add a description
Bobbie Nau, left, and Kathy Rosenthal, right,
 with their prizes from the 2014 Raffle
 

The CASETA Board offered all in attendance an opportunity to assist in reaching the $10,000 challenge by pledging funds and many stepped up to make it happen. Kudos and thanks to the following who have made a contribution to the 2014-2015 Matching Grant:

 

Judy and Stephen Alton 
Margaret Blagg
Francine Carraro
Scott Chase 

Bill and Mary Cheek

Victoria and Light Cummins

Jack and Gail Davis in honor of Dr. William Reaves

Mark and Geralyn Kever

Tom and Tam Kiehnhoff

Gene Krane and Jim Evans

Larry Martin

Kathryn and Morris Matson

Marshall Meece
George and Beverly Palmer

Stan Price

Sally and Norman Reynolds

Linda Harral Roberts

Juliana and Sam Stevens

Richard Stout             

 

                                     FEATURE

Texas Impressionism

Branding with Brushstroke and Color, 1885-1935

A Summing Up

 

The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, organized the 113-painting exhibition, Texas Impressionism: Branding with Brushstroke and Color, 1885-1935, which toured the state from April 2012 to early January 2014.[1] A 166-page soft-cover catalogue, published by the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, with essays by William H. Gerdts, Ph.D., and Michael R. Grauer, respectively the exhibition's special advisor and curator, accompanied the exhibition.   The show opened at PPHM and was then seen at The Grace Museum in Abilene; the Tyler Museum of Art; The Witte Museum, San Antonio; and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas at Beaumont. All venues reported excellent attendance for the exhibition and glowing reviews. A docent at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas remarked it was the best-attended exhibition she could remember. 

John Elliot Jenkins
Palo Duro Canyon, West Texas, 1934
Collection of the Panhandle-Plains
 Historical Museum

For purposes of this exhibition, PPHM chose to adhere fairly rigidly to a few Impressionist requirements for a painting to be included; namely: painted between 1885 and 1935; a high-keyed palette bordering on and including the pastel colors; active brushwork with short strokes applied quickly over the surface; usually painted en plein air.

 

 

 

Ironically, the life of the best-known Texas Impressionist, Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922), almost perfectly bracketed the rise, practice, and decline of Impressionist painting in the United States.

Louis Oscar Griffith
Cows in the Milkweed, ca. 1906
Collection of the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum

Noted American art scholar and authority on American Impressionism, Dr. William H. Gerdts observed that by about 1920: "Impressionism, once a vital, modern force in American painting, had become both conventionalized and conservative in the light of newer developments in American art." Three main figures in early Texas art, Emma Richardson Cherry, Robert Onderdonk, and Frank Reaugh, had become established artists in Texas and had been exposed to French Impressionism and its offshoots in other parts of the globe by 1900. They either painted Impressionist pictures themselves and/or encouraged its tenets in Texas.

   

Other important early Texas artists emerged as key to Texas Impressionism. Julian Onderdonk's studies in New York provided

Samuel Peters Ziegler
Trinity River, ca. 1930

Collection of the Panhandle-Plains
 Historical Museum 

him Impressionist tools to paint the south Texas landscape. Julian Onderdonk's landscapes certainly inspired the San Antonio Competitive exhibitions (the so-called "Davis Competitions") of paintings of Texas wildflowers in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929, and ultimately gave rise to the ubiquitous "Bluebonnet School," prevalent in Texas even today. Prominent among the entrants in the San Antonio Competitives were Impressionists such as Dawson Dawson-Watson, Jose Arpa, Edward G. Eisenlohr, and Ella Koepke Mewhinney.  

 
Lucien Abrams
Pool in Spring, ca. 1913
Collection of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum 
"Texpatriates" such as Seymour Thomas, Murray Bewley, and Lucian Abrams lived in France but sent their French paintings to Texas art exhibitions anyway. Perhaps the only Texas artist to be clearly identified with American Impressionism during its heyday in the United States was Abrams.  


One of the many results and deductions gleaned from Texas Impressionism is the need for additional exhibitions and scholarly studies related to the topic. For example, the Old Jail Art Center in Albany, Texas, organized Lucien Abrams: An Impressionist from Texas (also shown at PPHM and in a slightly different form at the Florence Griswold Museum at Old Lyme, Connecticut).   Post-Impressionism also had a significant impact on Texas art; consequently an exhibition tentatively called "Lone Star Fauves: Post-Impressionism in Texas" is in the works. Finally, a Jose Arpa exhibition is being planned to tour Texas in 2016-2017.

Texas Impressionism attempted to break the stereotypes about what constitutes a "Texas painting" by showing that an important contribution to American Impressionism was practiced by Texas artists, whether those paintings they produced depicted Texas or not. Moreover, PPHM hoped the exhibition would impact the study of early Texas art as significantly as the Dallas Museum of Art's seminal 1985 exhibition, Lone Star Regionalism: The Dallas Nine and Their Circle.

 

Michael R. Grauer

Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs/Curator of Art and Western Heritage

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas

January 2014

_______________________________

 

[1] Some paintings were only shown in Canyon and San Antonio.

 

A version of this article appeared in Texas Heritage, Volume 1 2014, as the initial column of a new feature sponsored by CASETA which will explore the state's art legacy and spotlight the works of Texas masters.

                       MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
                       & Upcoming  Events
Round-up your upcoming events that relate to the study and advancement of early Texas art and email details to caseta@samfa.org. We will publicize your event in the next newsletter!  



Panhandle

 

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum 

2503 4th Avenue

Canyon, TX  79015 

 

Olive Vanruff: Artist of the American West

March 1, 2014 through February 7, 2015 

 

Born at Martin's Ferry, Ohio, in 1908, Olive Vandruff (1908-2003) spent much of her childhood traveling in the Southwestern United States with her geologist father.  She began studying to be an artist with the painter Edmund Giesbert at the University of Chicago.  She also studied with Chicago sculptors Elisabeth H. Hibbard and Frederick C. Hibbard, eventually becoming an assistant to them.  Vandruff moved to San Antonio in the 1940s where she became an assistant to sculptor Pompeo Coppini, and operated a sheep ranch near Kerrville.   While in the Hill Country she became a renowned painter of wildlife and  game birds, and was often commissioned to paint horse and pet portraits.  She met artist H. D. Bugbee in 1960, marrying him the following year and relocating to Clarendon, Texas.  Upon Bugbee's death in 1963, Vandruff succeeded him as curator of art at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum until her retirement in 1982. 

Vandruff worked in several media, including pastel, watercolor, casein, and oil.  The works of art presented in this exhibition are a testament to her skills with different subjects and in different media.  The entire exhibition is drawn from the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum's permanent collection.

   

Anna Keener: Southwest Regionalist

September 13, 2014 through February 15, 2015  

 

Borrowing from both private and public collections, PPHM will present a retrospective of Keener's work from her time in Texas to the conclusion of her career in Santa Fe.  Approximately 70 works will be included in the exhibition to be presented in the Foran Family Galleries.

 

An artist and educator, Anna Keener (1895-1982) was born in Flagler, Colorado.  She studied with Birger Sandzen at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, achieving B.F.A. and B.A. degrees there in 1916 and 1918, respectively, and received her M.A. from the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) in 1951. She also studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, Art Institute of Chicago, and Detroit School of Design.   She used her maiden name "Keener" for her artistic endeavors but was known as Anna Wilton in her teaching and scholarly pursuits. She was an internationally recognized and honored artist.  The Southwest in general and Navajo culture in particular served as a focus for her work.  Written works include Spontaneity in Design (1923), describing the "scribble" approach to design. Anna was a Life Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters and a charter member of the Art of American Society. In addition to these organizations, she was a member of numerous educational and art organizations.

 

FMI: www.panhandleplains.org  

 

Central Texas

 

The Witte Museum

Julian Onderdonk, Spring Afternoon, 1906-1907

3801 Broadway 

San Antonio, TX 78209

  

Julian Onderdonk  in New York: 

The Lost Years, The Lost Paintings 

March 8 through September 9, 2014    
Julian Onderdonk in New York: The Lost Years, The Lost Paintings

is an exhibition based on a book of the same name by James Graham Baker published by the Texas State Historical Association. Dr. Ron Tyler is the curator of the exhibition. Both the exhibition and the book reveal that while Julian Onderdonk has heretofore been considered a Texas artist, he was also an American artist as more than one third of his body of work was created in New York City and depicts scenes from the surrounding area. Many of the New York works were signed with pseudonyms, each well researched and documented. This exhibition and the book bring these years to light. Most of these paintings have never been displayed publicly.

  

 FMI: www.wittemuseum.org  

  

Buehler Fine Art

6708 San Pedro Avenue

San Antonio, TX 78216

  

Early Texas Art and Prominent San Antonio Artists

  

FMI: http://www.beuhlerfineart.com/ 

  

Southeast Texas


The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park

1100 Bagby Street
Houston, Texas 77002

 

Following General Sam Houston

June 6 - August 2, 2014

The etchings for this pictorial biography of Sam Houston were made while artist and historian Bernhardt Wall was in La Porte, Texas, close to the battlefield of San Jacinto. At the time, Wall had the assistance of Houston's one surviving son, Andrew Jackson Houston. There were two editions of the book - the "San Jacinto" and the "Texas Centennial." The "San Jacinto" is on view in this exhibition. One of the over seventy etchings features Sam entering the 1850 Nichols-Rice-Cherry House, now located at The Heritage Society in Sam Houston Park. The exhibit will also feature some personal objects from the Houston family from the Permanent Collection of The Heritage Society. The etchings in this exhibition are on loan from The Printing Museum.


FMI: www.heritagesociety.org/museumgallery.html  


William Reaves Fine Art Gallery

2313 Brun Street

Houston, TX 77019

  

Houston's Founders at City Hall

June 1-October 1, 2014

  

The Mayor's Office, in conjunction with William Reaves Fine Arts Gallery, brings a splendid selection of art works by many of Houston's earlier painters to the walls of City Hall in an effort to acknowledge the Bayou City's rich arts legacy and to recognize local artists who have made lifetime contributions to the growth of the Houston arts scene.

  

FMI: http://reavesart.com/?page_id=5236 

  

South Texas 
   

Art Museum of South Texas 

1902 N. Shoreline Blvd  

Corpus Christi, TX  78401 

  

Deep in the Art of Texas:

Selections from the Collection of Torch Energy Advisors

September 26, 2014 through January 4, 2015

 

This exhibition of early Texas art comes from the Torch Energy Collection and was developed by the Center for Texas Studies at Texas Christian University.  Presenting a panoramic view of the art of Texas, the exhibition begins with such early artists as Theodore Gentilz and Robert Jenkins Onderdonk and ends with examples of contemporary artists such as Nancy Bush and Mark Kohler.  The paintings cover 100 years from 1850 - 1950 and also include works by Julian Onderdonk, Frank Reaugh, Jose Arpa, Otis Dozier, Tom Lea, Everett Spruce and many other luminaries of early Texas art.   Deep in the Art of Texas chronicles the entire state from the mountains of Big Bend to the fertile fields of East Texas and offers insight into our state history and its people. 

  

West Texas

  

The Grace Museum
102 Cypress Street
Abilene, TX 79601

  

Home on the Range
May 8-August 9, 2014

  

Summer of 2014 at The Grace Museum is a celebration of the art and history of Central West Texas, an often mislabeled 200,000+ square mile area of the Lone Star State. The region's 22 sparsely populated counties share a 19th and early 20th century history as an important concourse for indigenous people, ranchers, farmers and merchants. Artwork by important artists who documented early impressions of the area, historic photographs, oral histories and rarely-seen artifacts from private and public collections reveal a cherished historical link to the past that still exists in the area. Abilene's annual Western Heritage Classic ranch rodeo will kick off this celebration of the history of Central West Texas on May 8th with the Western Heritage Parade in downtown Abilene. Experience authentic Central West Texas through special events, camps, classes and programs throughout the summer.

  

 

Texas Tech University

3301 4th Street

Lubbock, TX 79409

  

AZ<>NM<>TX: 20th-21st Century Art in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas

on-going permanent exhibit 

 

An "Up from the Basement" exhibition from the Museum's Art Collection, the Talkington Gallery features selections from 20th and 21st century art of the southwestern United States. This region ranges from scorching deserts, broad horizontal vistas, near bottomless canyons, rugged mountain ranges to rich but rare river valleys, in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and portions of Colorado and Utah. No one type of landscape represents the Southwest and, similarly, no singular art style defines it. The art works on exhibit sample many divergent paths that artists from the Southwest have followed, from realism to romanticism, from impressionism to expressionism, from minimalism to conceptualism, and more. All of the works on exhibit are from the collections of the Museum.  

FMI: https://www.depts.ttu.edu/museumttu/exhsch11.html#apr13 
 
New Mexico 

Matthews Gallery
669 Canyon Road
Sante Fe, NM 87501
 
HANNAH HOLIDAY STEWART: An Artistic Legacy Rediscovered
July 4-18, 2014
 

Santa Fe, NM-Matthews Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by American modernist sculptor Hannah Holliday Stewart, running July 4-18 with an opening reception on Friday, July 4 from 5-7 pm. Stewart (1924-2010) was one of a small group of influential women sculptors in the latter part of the 20th century with a rising national reputation before she mysteriously turned her back on the art world and assumed a life of seclusion two decades before her death. At the time of her death over 120 sculptures were discovered in her studio and many of these will be featured in HANNAH HOLLIDAY STEWART: An Artistic Legacy Rediscovered.

  

FMI: http://thematthewsgallery.com/Exhibit_Detail.cfm?ShowsID=65 

  

                                               Items of Interest
       
           Endowed Professorship in Art Established at UTEP

Sanford and Holly Thurston Cox are pleased to announce the establishment of the Thurston-Cox Rho Sigma Tau Endowed Professorship at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). The endowed professorship will be a permanent endowment to benefit the UTEP Department of Art to further research in Art History with emphasis on early Texas art. Both Sanford and Holly are long-time members of CASETA, each have served on the CASETA Board and are deeply involved in the El Paso art community.     


Midcentury Modern Texas Art Book Published by UT Press

The long awaited book, Midcentury Modern Art in Texas, by Katie Robinson Edwards, debuted this month published by the University of Texas Press. Almost 400 pages with over 200 color plates this eye-opening book shows Texas artists were very much a part of the modern American art scene in the mid-twentieth century.  Texas Monthly included the book in "The Checklist" section of its July issue and the author has been interviewed for an upcoming segment on National Public Radio's Morning Edition.

 

Katie Robinson Edwards was a speaker at the 2014 Symposium and is a member of the CASETA board. She is Curator of the Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum in Austin and taught modern and contemporary at art the Albritton Art Institute at Baylor University in Waco for eight years.

 

To order from UT Press click below:  

http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/edwmid   

   

New Executive Director at Old Jail Art Center

The Old Jail Art Center in Albany has named James F. Peck its new Executive Director as of May 1st. Peck comes to Albany from Corning, New York, where he most recently was the Curator of Collections at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, New York, a post he has held since May 2011. Prior to that, he was the Ruth G. Hardman Curator of European and American Art at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 2002-2008. Peck is also a doctoral candidate in the history and criticism of art at the University of Oklahoma. Peck started his job off right by attending the 2014 CASETA Symposium and had an opportunity to meet many Texas art enthusiasts first hand. 


Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum Receives
Two Texas Art Collections

Michael Grauer, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs/Curator of Art and Western Heritage at at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum has announced the acquisition of two major art collections for the museum.

Lubbock art collector Jay Matsler has left his entire Texas and New Mexico regionalist art collection to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum at Canyon. Mr. Matsler focused his collecting efforts on the prints of Texas artist Merritt Mauzey whose series of lithographs on dryland cotton farming appealed to him as his mother's family were cotton farmers on the South Plains. Moreover, Mr. Matsler collected lithographs, aquatints, and etchings by Texas artists, especially those by the so-called "Dallas Nine" and their circle, including Jerry Bywaters, Otis Dozier, Perry Nichols, William Lester, Florence McClung, and Everett Spruce, and members of the all-female Texas Printmakers such as Stella Lodge LaMond. He also collected works by Lubbock artists such as Bess Bigham Hubbard, Leo Bernice Fix, Mona Pierce, and Dorothy Bryan. All works by these artists are part of the Matsler bequest.Read here for complete details.

The second collection is a donation from Carol and David Farmer formerly of Dallas, Texas, and now of Taos, New Mexico. The long-time collectors of Regionalist prints have given seventeen (17) fine art prints. As collectors, Carol and David Farmer have focused on the all-female Texas Printmakers and other female print makers. They moved to Taos in 2001. Among the prints in the Farmers' gift are lithographs, serigraphs, etchings, and aquatints by Mary Doyle, Constance Forsyth, Stella Lodge LaMond, Barbara Maples, Blanche McVeigh, Janet Turner, Elizabeth Walmsley, Barbara Whitehead, Edward Bearden, and Ben Carlton Mead. Read here for complete details.

   

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

Announces Arpa Exhibition

 

The Panhandle Plains Historical Museum has begun work on a major retrospective of the works of Jose Arpa!  Michael Grauer, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs/Curator of Art and Western Heritage, will curate an exhibition of Jose Arpa's work, both in the United States and abroad.  The planned exhibition is expected to open at the PPHM in 2015 and then travel to two or three other Texas cities, for a total run of about one year.

 

Michael is looking for works to consider for inclusion in this exhibition.  If you have a work of art by Mr. Arpa that you would be willing to lend to the exhibition, please send an image to Mr. Grauer at mgrauer@pphm.wtamu.edu