Art
Storytelling, news, and reviews about works of art and the artists behind them
When Worlds Collide
A Houston art exhibit juxtaposes spirit and science with family photos, Tylenol caplets, and gigantic blood cells.
All American
The Dallas Museum of Art spent $55 million on a splendid new wing—and redefined itself in the process.
Hoof in Mouth
The biggest brouhaha in Dallas isn’t about taxes, potholes, or garbage collection. It’s about seventy bronze steers.
Moving Pictures
A provocative San Antonio exhibit captures the flash and fervor of the Chicano movement in art and politics.
Shooting Stars
With wit and grit, Amarillo-born photographer Mark Seliger persuades reluctant celebrities to show their true selves.
The Cowboy Boot Book
This fall, photographer Jim Arndt and Western props supplier Tyler Beard visited the annual event in Burnet to chew the fat with many of the craftsmen featured in The Cowboy Boot Book (Peregrine Smith Books), their pictorial guide to fancy footgear. Arndt and Beard have dressed Western since…
Raw Visions
A Houston show introduces new black Texas artists in works that range from personal vision to political agitprop.
Bull Snake on a Sofa
When James H. Evans moved to Marathon in 1988, he was struck by its abundant wildlife. “Anything unattended will be overrun with animals,” says the photographer. Evans takes up that theme in his “Lucille” series, focusing on a house vacated by the death of an elderly friend of that name.
Rodeo Reliquary, 1991
After a visit abroad in 1987, Sean Earley transformed his art. He returned steeped in Italy’s ubiquitous religious imagery, eager to paint the icons of his home state’s country and western myths (see “Earley Texas,” TM, December 1990). In this memorial scene, the Rodeo Queen presides over ascending contestants. Set…
Arcola Cafe
When Birney Imes began working on his juke joint series in 1983, the black honky- tonks that nourished the Mississippi Delta’s rich blues tradition were being replaced by discos. “What attracted me,” Imes says, “was the creativity that went into that special atmosphere. The older places have a timeless quality.”…
Southern Exposure
At Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Mexican photographers portray their culture with rare empathy and a sense of wonder.
Fay Ray at Siesta Time
William Wegman’s subtle portraits of his weimaraners have elevated the pet photo to high art. But few connoisseurs have known the range of his creativity—until now. The &first retro- spective of the artist’s output, on view at Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum, offers more of his trademark pups but also plenty…
The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup
Photojournalist Jim Cammack was struck by an odd sight at Sweetwater’s annual spring rattlesnake roundup: a man with a tail. No, the man, a Jaycees volunteer, was not participating in a roundup-sanctioned snake-wrestling contest. He was demonstrating one technique for holding the powerful Western diamondback while milking its venom.
Roadside Veterans
The grand scenery of the American Southwest draws hordes of tourists bent on capturing calendar-perfect panoramas on film. In “Revealing Territory: Photographs of the Southwest by Mark Klett,” an aptly titled show opening March 14, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth presents quite different views, ones that the vista-hungry…
Danny Turner with Roy Rogers
On assignment for Country America magazine, Dallas freelance photographer Danny Turner traveled to Southern California’s Roy Rogers—Dale Evans Museum to snap a portrait of the singing cowboy. Turner just couldn’t resist grabbing the opportunity for a “me and Roy” photo, and it turned out so well that Turner put it…
Robert Rauschenberg
Texas’ celebrated son Robert Rauschenberg joined the ranks of more than 150 American artists—from Robert Motherwell and Lee Krasner to Keith Haring and Sherry Levine—who have posed for the classic portraits of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. The photographer, working in the past few years with a huge studio camera that accommodates 24-…
Then and Now
Two San Antonio shows examine how Texas artists interpret the state’s past and present.
Fishing Cabin on the Pedernales River
Austinite Rebecca McEntee’s nostalgic view of a Hill Country retreat appears in Texas on a Roll–Images of Texas by Texas Photographers (Thomasson-Grant, $50), a project of the state’s three chapters of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Members were asked to submit the best of their work. Some 160 photographers…
Double Visions
Melissa Miller’s latest paintings are a dark departure from her past; a Rauschenberg retrospective examines his youthful eye.
Firefighter at the End of the Day
Paris-based Sebastião Salgado was among the international corps of photographers who converged on Kuwait last February to document the oil-field inferno that the retreating Iraqis left behind. On assignment for the New York Times Magazine, Salgado also captured the crushing weariness of the firefighters, many of whom worked for Texas…
Buried Treasures
Sifting through stored collections, the Dallas Museum of Art discovers a tradition of spiritual subtlety among Texas artists.
Blues in the Night
Adán Hernandez’s art career was going nowhere. Then Hollywood arrived to make him a star.
Earl Campbell on Mount Bonnell, Austin
Photograph by Michael O’Brien Michael O’Brien put the legendary Heisman trophy winner on the highest available pedestal for this shot. Campbell joins the trio of other famous Texans —Nolan Ryan, George Strait, and former Miss USA Gretchen Polhemus—who have posed looking spiffy for Wrangler’s “Western originals” advertising campaign, created…