Art
June 8, 2022
LBJ’s Presidential Doodles Are Just Bonkers
A smoking octopus and pointy-eared aliens: Johnson's sketches on political letterhead are wonderfully weird.
By Dan Solomon![Dan Solomon's Profile Photo]()
Art
Storytelling, news, and reviews about works of art and the artists behind them
Art
June 2, 2022
Things to Do, Read, Watch, and Visit in Texas This Summer
Our staffers share the art and entertainment they're most looking forward to this summer, from an opera about Frida Kahlo to a true-crime book about a famous Austin gangster.
Small Towns
June 1, 2022
The Scrap-Metal Artisan I’ll Never Forget
Bill Richardson’s creations from discarded metal were featured numerous times on Texas Country Reporter, but our friendship remains near and dear to my heart.
Style & Design
May 31, 2022
Art or Blasphemy? Whatever Your Take, Book Wheels Get Bibliophiles Talking
Lubbock-based artist Jon Whitfill is on a mission to transform discarded texts into eye-popping works of art.
Art
May 14, 2022
The New Cartier Exhibit Is a Crowning Glory for the Dallas Museum of Art
The show, which focuses on the Islamic influence on the 175-year-old French brand, is poised to be a summer hit.
Art
May 10, 2022
“Nature Cult” Is a Thicket of Remarkable Art on Ecological Themes
In the captivating show, on view at the McNay, San Antonio native Donald Moffett remixes the museum’s collection alongside his own work.
Art
April 28, 2022
Calder Kamin’s Art Redefines What is Trash
The Austin-based artist recycles discarded plastic into beautiful animal sculptures and hopes to inspire others to eliminate waste.
Art
April 19, 2022
For Enedina Vasquez, Life and Art Were Inseparable
Texas Country Reporter remembers the late artist, whose San Antonio house was covered from corner to corner in art, memories, and poetry.
Art
April 14, 2022
Pam Francis, Who Photographed the Most Famous Texans, Gets Her Due
This April, the Blaffer Art Museum will display Francis’s portraits of Texans from Beyoncé to Ann Richards—some of which appeared in this magazine.
By Claire Hogan![Claire Hogan's Profile Photo]()
![Taylor Prewitt's Profile Photo]()
Art
April 8, 2022
A Former Migrant Farmworker From Weslaco Puts His Memories on Canvas
Roel Flores’s folk art paintings are poignant and colorful, and his work is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection.
Art
April 8, 2022
Texas’s Newest Master Sculptor Is a Parrot Named Hannah
Houston sculptor John Havel discovered he was living with a genius. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, my parrot can make Giacomettis.’ ”
Art
April 8, 2022
‘The Plastic Bag Store’ Is a Shrine to Weird, Anti-Consumerist Austin
A dystopian puppet show and aisles of groceries made out of plastic bags kick off Fusebox Festival 2022.
Art
April 6, 2022
The World’s Tiniest Buc-ee’s Has Appeared in West Texas
The anonymous artist calls the piece “a light-hearted jab . . . at America’s propensity for ever-expanding excess.”
Art
March 31, 2022
‘Immersive Frida Kahlo’ Is an Uncanny Misreading of the Artist. She’d Love It.
Fridamania for the Instagram age takes hold in digital exhibits in Houston and Dallas.
Texas Country Reporter
March 31, 2022
The Man Known as the “Big Bend Photographer” Reflects on His Life’s Work
Texas Country Reporter revisits James H. Evans after thirty years. His long career has taken different turns, but his unwavering commitment to the people and places of West Texas defines his legacy.
Art
March 24, 2022
Nature Is Metal for This Welding Couple in Houston
From inside their shop, the wife-and-husband duo explain how they capture the universe in spiraling steel structures as tall as four-story buildings.
Art
March 22, 2022
Inside the Eclectic Home of Hill Country Sculptor Jonas Perkins
In Fredericksburg, Perkins’s creative approach to life can be seen in every inch of his one-of-a-kind retreat.
Art
March 21, 2022
Big Momma’s House Is Texas’s Most Intriguing New Art Space
Painter Sedrick Huckaby has converted his late grandmother's Fort Worth home into Kinfolk House, a venue designed to bring art to "regular people."
Texas Country Reporter
March 3, 2022
A Small-town Texan Keeps an Ancient Japanese Art Form Alive
Dinah Bowman is a world-renowned artist specializing in a fish printing technique. The results are rich, textured, and colorful. You have to see it for yourself.
Texas Country Reporter
February 25, 2022
She’s a Fourth-Generation Cattle Rancher. She’s Also a Master Painter.
From her studio near the Chihuahuan Desert, Alice Leese paints what it feels like to be out on the ranch.
Art
February 10, 2022
Why the Menil Collection Is No Longer Houston’s Best Art Museum
How Houston's Museum of Fine Arts overtook the Menil Collection.
Art
February 8, 2022
Build a Life-size Bison or Die Trying
When artist Cindee Klement designed an eight-hundred-pound sculpture to connect us with the soil under our feet, she got more than she bargained for.
Art
January 31, 2022
Do Black and Hispanic People Feel Welcome in Austin? An Artist Surveys the City’s Racial Climate.
Ariel René Jackson’s "A Welcoming Place" will likely be one of the more discussed Austin art shows of the season.
Art
January 26, 2022
An Awe-inspiring Space Odyssey Lifts Off in Houston
A new virtual reality experience launches you to the International Space Station, where you join the crew and see Earth like you’ve never seen it before.
Art
January 11, 2022
Bye-bye, Mr. American Pie
Texans have five days to celebrate Wayne Thiebaud, the late painter famous for his delectable still lifes, at an eye-popping retrospective in San Antonio.
Style & Design
January 5, 2022
The Steel House Saga: One Man’s Masterpiece Is Another’s Airbnb
The late sculptor Robert Bruno's unfinished home—a Lubbock-area landmark—is becoming a vacation rental. His friends are distressed.
Art
January 5, 2022
Fred Baldwin’s Life Was Worth 1,000 Pictures
Baldwin, who died in December, fought in Korea, met Picasso, traveled the world, and, with his wife, Wendy Watriss, made Houston a photography capital.
Art
January 4, 2022
Most Legendary Musicians Write Memoirs. Terry Allen Created an Entire Exhibition.
The singer-songwriter-artist reveals the inspirations behind his music in a multimedia museum show in Austin.
Art
December 31, 2021
Our Favorite Photos of 2021
From Leon Bridges’s home in Fort Worth to a vibrant coral reef near Galveston, this year took our photographers to some truly unforgettable places.
By Claire Hogan![Claire Hogan's Profile Photo]()
Art
December 27, 2021
How Georgia O’Keeffe’s Texas Years Shaped Her Art
While teaching in the Panhandle, the painter fell in love with the “wonderfully big” plains—and acquired an eye for light that would make her one of the all-time greats.
Art
December 22, 2021
Dave Hickey Wasn’t Just a Great Art Critic. He Was an Extraordinary Friend.
He wasn’t always kind, but he was kind to me in ways that mattered a great deal.
Art
December 21, 2021
2021 Was . . . ? These Works of Art Help Make Sense of It.
‘Texas Monthly’ contributors share which works best captured a year that seems to defy categorization—and which shows they’re looking forward to in 2022.
Art
December 13, 2021
You’ve Never Seen the Rio Grande Valley This Way
The Valley’s landscapes and people are subjects of a transporting art exhibit in San Antonio's Presa House gallery.
Art
December 6, 2021
Black Southern Music and Art Merge in “The Dirty South”
This revelatory show at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston finds the beat between gospel, blues, jazz, and visual art.
Art
November 20, 2021
Remembering Dave Hickey, Brilliant Art Critic and Renegade Texan
The celebrated Fort Worth writer and entrepreneur spent most of his life in exile from his home state. But it never lost its grip on his imagination.
Art
November 19, 2021
EAST Austin Is Over. What’s Next for an Art Scene That’s Losing Its Nucleus?
An annual tour of artist studios opts for a wider map as cost of living blows up the east side of the city.
Art
November 9, 2021
Portrait of the Artist as a Borderland Working-class Hero
A Luis Jiménez exhibition in Austin focuses on Southwestern themes in the art of the late, great El Pasoan.
Art
November 3, 2021
The Must-see Art Show of the Fall Is in . . . Waco?
Reclusive mailman and genius autodidact Kermit Oliver shows himself to be a hidden gem of Texas painting.
Art
October 12, 2021
In Houston, a Pioneering Feminist Artist Finally Gets the Spotlight
Niki de Saint Phalle fired rifles at her canvases, creating dazzling explosions of color.
Art
October 7, 2021
From California Artists, a Stinging Critique of Texas’s Relationship to Its Land
An ambitious traveling exhibition asks how we became a state of endless fences, dams, and gas flares.
Art
September 29, 2021
At the Kerrville Folk Festival, the Real Magic Isn’t On Stage
Photographer David Johnson pays joyful homage to the 49-year-old festival, where revelers gather for late-night jam sessions around the campfire.
Art
September 20, 2021
A Riveting Houston Art Exhibit Explores Race, Class, and Immigration
A dozen Texas artists tackle subjects both famous (Selena) and personal (family migration, motherhood) in this Texas Biennial show.
Art
September 15, 2021
One of the Country’s First Racially Integrated Fine Art Shows Gets an Overdue Update
A new exhibit in Houston's Fifth Ward is an homage to—and a critique of—one of the country's first racially integrated art shows.
Art
September 8, 2021
Can a Big, Texas-Wide Survey of Contemporary Art Tell Us Where We Go From Here?
The 2021 Texas Biennial abounds with new monuments for a state and art community in transition.
Art
August 19, 2021
Controversial Statues Are Falling Across the U.S., but This Texas Town Is Erecting New Ones
In Rockport, a celebrated artist is planning to install sculptures depicting the first contact between European explorers and the Karankawa. Is it a representation of a key moment in the area’s history, or a glorification of colonialism?
Art
August 10, 2021
Texas Ghost Towns Come Alive in an Intriguing Traveling Photo Exhibit
Morgan Page and Dustin Rice spent nearly three years roaming the state for "Bones of Texas," which features images of long-gone communities.
Health
July 29, 2021
Chronic Illness Cost This Former Dallas Museum Director Her Career. Embracing Novelty Gave Her New Life.
Working with UT-Dallas's Center for BrainHealth, Bonnie Pitman uses her art expertise to help physicians and people living with debilitating conditions.
Art
July 15, 2021
Houston Artist Jamal Cyrus’s Playful, Subversive Vision of Black History
His works incorporate redacted FBI documents, vintage records, and a saxophone deep-fried like a chicken wing.
Technology
July 14, 2021
Art Blocks Brings Big Money to Artists Who Paint With Code
The Houston-based website makes use of blockchain technology—and an element of surprise—to attract a sizable new audience for computer-generated works.
Art
July 1, 2021
Daniel Johnston’s Drawings Are as Wildly Inventive as His Music
A Dallas exhibit of 179 mostly never-before-seen works shows that the beloved songwriter was also a serious artist.