Jim Woodson

Colorful Rocky Landscape Oil Piece

2020

An intuitive artist, renowned Texan painter Jim Woodson is best known for his vivid landscape paintings of the American Southwest. 

Woodson creates richly colored depictions of hilly desert terrain and mountain ranges that teem with energy. While his works have been described as Impressionistic at times, Woodson integrates abstraction in his paintings and he has over the years cited the Bay Area figurative movement — and its pioneering members Richard Diebenkorn and David Park — as influences.

Woodson grew up in the city of Waco and was drawn to creative expression as a child. He studied at Arlington State University but eventually transferred from there to Texas Christian University (TCU). Before he moved on to TCU, while in his sophomore year at Arlington, he met art professor Joe Farrell Hobbs who taught him the core principles of painting. For Woodson, the instructor was an example of a person who made a career out of art.

Woodson finished his undergraduate work at TCU in 1965 and went on to the University of Texas in Austin (UT). After earning his graduate degree, he felt disillusioned by the academic and theoretical nature of the school’s MFA program.

In 1967, a newly married Woodson moved to San Francisco. After a series of unsatisfying jobs on the West Coast, he returned to Texas. In 1974, Woodson returned to TCU, only this time as an instructor. The position was initially a one-year, semi-formal appointment. He spent the next 39 years teaching art students how to make art — officially retiring in 2013.

While teaching and post-retirement, Woodson had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Texas, Oklahoma and California. His work is held in the public collections of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the El Paso Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art and other institutions.

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