At a crucial moment in the development of Texas art, an eccentric oil wildcatter form Massachusetts and Luling, Texas, turned to the prestigious San Antonio Art League with a proposal. He would fund a national art competition featuring the state's verdant fields of wildflowers and bring prominence to Texas art if the league would handle the details. Thus was born the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, which in three years at the end of the Roaring Twenties awarded more than $53,000 in prize money for paintings of Texas wildflowers, ranch life, and cotton farming. This presentation of twenty-nine color plates of the competitions' best works includes paintings by such important artists as Jose Arpa, Dawson Dawson-Watson, Xavier Gonzalez, Edward G. Eisenlohr, and Oscar E. Berninghaus and Herbert Dunton (the latter duo having also served as founding members of the Taos Society of Artists). In the plates, the artists have portrayed a variety of landscapes and atmospheres to present the wildflowers loved not only by Davis but by generations of Texas art enthusiasts.
A significant collection of Texas paintings and prints hangs humbly and inconspicuously throughout the offices, conference rooms, and hallways of Texas A&M University Press. These works comprise the Frank H. Wardlaw Collection of Texas Art, named in honor of the Press’s founding director, who was one of the genuine publishing icons of his day. Established in 1983 at the dedication of the new headquarters of Texas A&M University Press on the campus of Texas A&M, the collection began with twenty inaugural contributions that came as gifts from respected Texas artists whose art appeared in the books Wardlaw had shepherded to publication at the Press. Since then, the collection—which continues to be linked to artists published by the Press—has grown to house more than one hundred paintings, photographs, and illustrations. Among the noted artists featured in the collection are E. M. (Buck) Schiwetz, Otis Dozier, Michael Frary, Everett Spruce, Emily Guthrie Smith, Jerry Bywaters, and, among more recent additions, Dorothy Hood and Richard Stout. Through interviews with longtime staff and research into the Press’s book files and correspondence, William and Linda Reaves have uncovered the captivating history of this unlikely collection. In A Book Maker’s Art, they present the freshly assembled story of the Wardlaw collection, from its modest yet unique beginning to its present-day status as one of the university’s excellent collections of Texas art, reflecting the exceptional bond of arts and letters that has come to distinguish Texas A&M University Press.
E. M. (Buck) Schiwetz (1898–1984) could be called a “favorite son” among Texas artists working in the twentieth century. Schiwetz ranks among the state’s best-known early artists, having left behind an important body of iconic Texas imagery produced over a prodigious career spanning some seven decades. Educated as an architect at A&M College of Texas, he parlayed this training with natural acumen to become a consummate draftsman, prominent illustrator, and celebrated artist. In the mid-twentieth century, Schiwetz distinguished himself as an active participant in the rise of Texas art. As the Texas art scene experienced a period of dynamic growth and development, his artwork evolved across successive movements of Lone Star Impressionism, Regionalism, Modernism, and Expressionism. During his lifetime, the artwork of Buck Schiwetz arguably graced more publications than that of any other Texas artist. Featured in popular journals such as The Humble Way or published in the pioneering art books issued by academic presses at both the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, Schiwetz’s Texas imagery has long been employed to portray and celebrate Lone Star history and culture. The Artistic Legacy of Buck Schiwetz provides a long-overdue examination of this important Texas artist and his legacy: the first authoritative treatment of Schiwetz’s career as both fine artist and accomplished illustrator, and the first scholarly examination of his full body of work. See the art exhibition traveling Texas from 2023-2025: Stark Galleries, Texas A&M University: September 21 to December 18, 2023 Tyler Museum of Art: January 19 to April 14, 2024 The Grace Museum, Abilene: April 27 to September 15, 2024 The Capitol of Texas, Austin: October 25, 2024, to January 31, 2025
At a crucial moment in the development of Texas art, an eccentric oil wildcatter form Massachusetts and Luling, Texas, turned to the prestigious San Antonio Art League with a proposal. He would fund a national art competition featuring the state's verdant fields of wildflowers and bring prominence to Texas art if the league would handle the details. Thus was born the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, which in three years at the end of the Roaring Twenties awarded more than $53,000 in prize money for paintings of Texas wildflowers, ranch life, and cotton farming. This presentation of twenty-nine color plates of the competitions' best works includes paintings by such important artists as Jose Arpa, Dawson Dawson-Watson, Xavier Gonzalez, Edward G. Eisenlohr, and Oscar E. Berninghaus and Herbert Dunton (the latter duo having also served as founding members of the Taos Society of Artists). In the plates, the artists have portrayed a variety of landscapes and atmospheres to present the wildflowers loved not only by Davis but by generations of Texas art enthusiasts.
In Of Texas Rivers and Texas Art, Andrew Sansom, a leading Texas conservationist, and William E. Reaves, an influential Texas art collector and historian, have teamed up to showcase some of the finest contemporary river art detailing the gorgeous traits of Texas landscapes. The featured artwork comes from Randy Bacon, Mary Baxter, David Caton, Margie Crisp, Keith Davis, Fidencio Duran, Jon Flaming, Charles Ford, Pat Gabriel, Hunter George, Billy Hassell, Lee Jamison, Robb Kendrick, Laura Lewis, William Montgomery, Noe Perez, Jeri Salter, Erik Sprohge, Debbie Stevens, and William Young. Art in service of conservation is nothing new, as Sansom and Reaves note in their introductions. And rivers have figured prominently in the artistic imagination for all of recorded history and probably before that, as evidenced by flood stories and myths preserved in almost all the religious and folk traditions of the world. The collection of work included in this book is exemplary of the strong inspiration that rivers have provided for a vast current of literature, music, and art, in turn shaping their place in life and culture and bringing about a greater appreciation of the stunning beauty of our natural world. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
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