Digging It
Three South Padre Island artists work on the beach, but don't call them bums.
Storytelling, news, and reviews about works of art and the artists behind them
Three South Padre Island artists work on the beach, but don't call them bums.
My divorce made me what I am today.
Gary Tanhauser, who illustrated "Two Barmaids, Five Alligators, and the Butcher of Elmendorf," talks about how he approaches his work.
At Bo Knows Southwest Grill in Winters, co-owner Marlene Gardner's art is on display. She hopes her leather angels speak to others as they speak to her.
Three sites near Del Rio with outstanding examples of rock art makes learning about ancient history fun for moms and dads. Kids too.
A groundbreaking exhibit and an accompanying book make this a banner year to stand up and salute the history of Texas's flags.
With a massive addition to its gallery space and a host of new exhibitions in the works, Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum is back in the saddle.
In these days of online overkill, it’s rare for someone not to be plugged into a computer, particularly someone who works for magazines and newspapers. This month we welcome a newcomer to the world of high technology: Dallas illustrator Dorit Rabinovitch. A veteran artist who usually does her color work
He looks like a cross between Ed Asner and Uncle Charley from My Three Sons, but don’t get Dave Hickey started on the subject of beauty— his own or anyone else’s.
With Fort Worth’s Michael Auping as a curator and nine of the state’s artists participating, this year’s Whitney Biennial puts a New York spotlight on the art of Texas.
Sixteen years after rocketing into the Whitney Biennial, Dallas photographer Nic Nicosia is still on the cutting edge.
Artist of the portrait.
Once upon a time, you went to a museum to see what was inside. Now you go to see the museum itself—and nowhere is this trend more in evidence than in Texas.
Austin painter Julie Speed is the latest ascendant to the ranks of art royalty. Talk about a brush with greatness.
From antique benches to cast-iron planters, a selective guide to the yard art of your dreams.
Thirty years ago, Monterrey had no galleries, no museums, and no collectors. Today, it’s an art market that rivals Dallas and Houston.
The Exum files: No one questions her drive.
A terrific and prolific photographer remembered.
Fort Worth art patrons fight the Presbyterians over Georgia O’Keefe
Sculpting a legacy.
I wanted to see lightning strike the steel rods that artist Walter De Maria installed in a New Mexico field. I didn’t, but the trip was still illuminating.
Joe Ely hits the road.
Which version of history should be promoted by El Paso’s new statue series: the Wild West or the mild West?
With a major retrospective of his work at three Houston museums, Robert Rauschenberg is once again the talk of Texas. What’s he been up to? A portrait of the artist as an old man.
Less than a decade ago, she was a homemaker and an arts volunteer, but today the Arlington Museum of Art’s Joan Davidow is the most imaginative and adventurous museum director working in Texas.
This time of year, Yule find him hanging around East Texas: On lawns and roofs, he’s a Claus célèbre.
Stanley Marsh 3’s mobile autos.
It’s still the best little town in Texas.
A history mystery involving ranching’s King family.
Celebrity portraiture often requires that the subject be ready for anything. An imaginative photographer like Houston’s Pam Francis will conjure up unusual settings and costumes to best evoke her subject’s true nature, as when she lured oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt and his German shepherd to the roof of a building
On the money.
Over the past twenty years Texas Monthly contributing editor Michael Ennis has written about F-16 jet fighters, Houston topless clubs, and the Dallas Apparel Mart. But what he’s focused on mostly is art, as he does in this month’s story about “outsider” artists (see “Folks,”). “I wanted to approach
The boom in “outsider” art that began in New York, Chicago, and Atlanta has finally come to Texas, driven by true visionaries whose images conjure worlds that may have never existed but are invariably inhabitedby penetrating psychological truths.
For thirty years Mary Ellen Mark has made her name as a documentary photographer by not shying away from tough assignments, whether that means traveling for six months in India to shoot circus folk or infiltrating the world of runaway kids in Seattle. Chronicling life at Abilene’s House of Yahweh
In which Texas towns did Georgia O’Keeffe teach art, and for which photographer did she pose nude?
Left: Untitled, 1993. Right: Beware, 1994. The old stereotypes have only been repackaged, Charles says. Right: Clockwise from top left, four paintings from the Liberty Bros. Permanent Daily Circus series: Blue Period, 1995, Oop’s, 1995, Desperados Leap for Life, 1996, and Smiles, 1996. “I’m trying to be as honest as
By employing stereotypes like Sambo and Aunt Jemima, Austin painter Michael Ray Charles hopes to master the art of racial healing.
Charting the state’s museum-building boom.
Now that both its building and its mission have been renovated, Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum is ready to win back the public and reestablish its eminence.
In 1988, when James H. Evans was in his mid-thirties, he left behind a successful photography studio in Austin and moved to remote Marathon, where he took a job as a cook at the Gage Hotel and shot pictures on the side. “Everyone thought I was nuts,” he says. “I
After fifty years of traveling the Southwest, ranch photographer Frank Reeves left behind a vast body of work and unforgettable portraits of the cowboy’s way of life.
The University of Houston thinks Frank Stella is frankly stellar.
What do the sculptures of Jim Magee and the paintings of Annabel Livermore have in common? Nothing—except that they were created by the same person.
Mexico’s Ballet Folklórico steps lively (Dallas, Galveston, and San Antonio). Plus: the richness of Catalonian art (San Antonio); the brew-haha that is Oktoberfest (Fredericksburg); the keys to jazz piano (Austin, Houston, and San Antonio); and singing the praises of Gabriel García Márquez (Houston). Edited by Quita McMath, Erin Gromen, and
A new exhibit in San Marcos pays homage to Manuel Alvarez Bravo, the grandfather of Mexican photography, and the generations of fotógrafos who followed his lead.
Andrew Eccles has photographed plenty of 24-karat celebrities for Texas Monthly, but his session with Lou Diamond Phillips was a truly golden experience. “In an industry that’s marked by jaded people,” Eccles says, “Lou was a breath of fresh air. He’s down to earth, talkative, enthusiastic—an incredibly sweet guy.”In his
Collecting their culture.
East meets Southwest in an unprecedented festival of Japanese culture in Dallas. Plus: Texas rock and rollers shake their Hootie; Lubbock gets down for a four-day celebration of cowboys and cool tunes; the University of Texas Longhorns host the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame—and give one of their own the
At the twenty-fifth annual Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio, you can nibble on Lebanese kibbeh, sample Nigerian suya, gnaw on a Filipino inihaw—or stick to watermelon from Luling. Plus: A Fantastick show in Fort Worth from the boys of Tuna; powerful photos from Richard Avedon in Austin; a hellish
THE MAIN EVENTWillie Powerby Erin Gromen This July 4 in Luckenbach, you can get Kinky, start Waylon, and fall Asleep at Willie Nelson’s annual picnic—.When he first sang “Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas, with Waylon and Willie and the boys” almost twenty years ago, Waylon Jennings forever linked himself and