Charles Morin Fine Art

Johnny Banks (1912-1988) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 11.5 x 9.5 Frame Size: 21.75 x 15.75 Medium: Multimedia on Poster Board 1987 "Watermelon Time" Johnny Banks (1912-1988) In my ...

ohnny Banks (1912-1988) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 11 x 14 Frame Size: 17.75 x 20.75 Medium: Multimedia on Paper "Mountain Home" Biography Johnny Banks (1912-1988) In my opinion ...

Johnny Banks (1912-1988) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 10.5 x 17 Frame Size: 20.5 x 16.5 Medium: Mixed Media on poster board Dated 1987 "Thanksgiving" Biography Johnny Banks (1912-1...

Julian Onderdonk (1882 - 1922) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 20 x 30 Frame Size: 29 x 39 Medium: Oil on Canvas 1921 "A Road in Late Afternoon" This painting is so magnificent that ...

James Robinson (1944-2015) Austin, Dallas, Houston Artist Image Size: 24 x 36 Frame Size: 32 x 44 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Clearly signed lower left quadrant about an inch above the...

Frank Hoffman (1888-1958) New Mexico, Illinois Artist Image Size: 27 x 41 Frame Size: 37 x 50 Medium: Oil Circa 1930s - 1940s "The Encounter" Indian & Bear Frank Hoffman (1888-1958) Growing up in New Orleans where his father raced horses, Frank Hoffman developed a great love for these animals, which was reflected in his paintings. He worked as an illustrator for the "Chicago American" newspaper, which gave him an opportunity to draw many subjects from opera to prize fights, and eventually he became head of the department. During that time, he took formal art training from J. Wellington Reynolds, a portrait painter. In 1916, having been rejected for military service because of poor eyesight, he went West and lived with cowboys and Indian tribes and served as public relations director for Glacier National Park. Eventually he settled on a ranch near Taos, New Mexico, and became part of that art colony and studied with Leon Gaspard, who encouraged him to use color freely. Advertisers including General Motors, General Electric, and the Great Northern Railway hired him because they loved his bold, broad brush work and striking colors. He also did magazine illustrations, specializing in western subjects. Because of the spaciousness of his ranch that he called Hobby Horse Rancho, he kept live models of cow ponies, thoroughbred horses, longhorn steers, several breeds of dogs, eagles, a bear and burros. From 1940 Brown & Bigelow Publishing Company of St. Paul, Minnesota had him under exclusive contract, and during the next 14 years, he produced 150 paintings for that company. Source: Walt Reed, The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000 Known as a traditional Western illustrator, painter and sculptor, Frank Hoffman was born in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up around his father's New Orleans, Louisiana, racing stables. Through a family friend, Hoffman was hired to make sketches for the Chicago American, later becoming head of the art department. While working for the paper, he had five years of formal art training in private lessons from J. Wellington Reynolds, a portrait painter. In 1916, Hoffman went West to paint, living with the Indian tribes and the cowboys. During that time, he also worked as public relations director for Glacier National Park, where he met noted artist John Singer Sargent. In 1920, Hoffman joined the young art colony in Taos, New Mexico. He studied with Leon Gaspard, learning the use of color. Although focusing on his fine art, Hoffman also painted for corporate advertising campaigns and illustrated Western subjects for the leading national magazines in the 1920's. Hoffman became the best-known New Mexico illustrator of the time. As his success grew, he bought his own Hobby Horse Rancho, where he raised quarter horses and kept as live models the longhorns, dogs, eagles, burros, and even a bear that he had begun to sculpt in the 1930's. Later, beginning with 1940, Hoffman was under exclusive contract to Brown and...

Bob Wygant (1927 - 2008) Houston Artist Image Size: 20 x 30 Frame Size: 28 x 38 Medium: Acrylic on Masonite "Pale Morning Mist" Bob Wygant (1927 - 2008) A T...

Arturo Mercado (1938 -2016) Austin Artist Image Size: 20 x 14.5 Frame Size: 30 x 25 Medium: Oil ON CANVAS "Early Mornin Snow" Biography Arturo Mercado (1938 -2016) Arturo Mercado w...

Alexander John Drysdale (1870-1934) New Orleans Louisiana / New York Artist Size: 20 x 30 Frame: 26 x 36 Medium: Oil Wash? Watercolor? Dated: 1917 "Misty Bayou" Housed in the original magnificent frame. Alexander John Drysdale (1870-1934) New Orleans Louisiana / New York Artist Alexander John (A.J.) Drysdale was an early 20th century Louisiana artist who specialized in landscapes using the technique of oil wash, that gave his works a characteristic of a hazy look. Drysdale made use of this technique by diluting the oil paint with kerosene and applying it with cotton balls. Alexander John Drysdale, born in Marietta, Georgia on March 2, 1870, came to New Orleans at the age of fifteen with his parents. His father, Reverend Alexander J. Drysdale, became the rector of Christ Church Cathedral. Alex received private tutoring from a Professor Mehado and art lessons from Ida Hackell at the Southern Art Union. Later in New Orleans (1887) he studied art under Paul Poincy (1833-1909). The exact date of Drysdale's arrival in New York is unknown, but he enrolled in the Art Students League where he received instruction from Charles C. Curran and Frank Vincent DuMond. Apparently, he remained in New York for about five years and did not go to Europe for further study. After some time, Drysdale began specializing in landscapes, executed in a tonalist manner. Back in New Orleans, Drysdale was inspired by local subjects, especially swamp or bayou areas and other desolate wetlands. Over a period of many years Drysdale's landscapes evolved to a unique stylistic maturity. In 1909 he received a gold medal from the New Orleans Art Association. It is easy to see the influence of two artists that he admired: Corot and Inness. Working equally well in oil and watercolor (he also did scenes in charcoal), Drysdale usually divided his scene into halves or thirds, typically, a foreground consisting of tall swamp grasses achieved with broad vertical strokes; a middle ground consisting of a backdrop row of trees at the horizon line executed with staccato, jabbing strokes resulting in textural contrast; and a background devoted totally to a tonalist-like moisture-laden sky often hazy with no clouds or only a slight indication of them. This formulaic compositional format rendered with an economy of technique resulted in imagery with repetitious forms and shapes diffused in a nebulous space. In this regard, Drysdale's works are impressionistic; he also tended to use the violets and blues of the impressionist palette. Yet he lacked a specific interest in color and light. Although his expression of the Louisiana scenery is very personal, even mystical, the artist appears to have been very limited in subject matter. One of his last works was a mural for the Shushan (New York) Airport administration building, and shortly before his death he was employed as an artist by the Civil Works Administration. Drysdale was a member of the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans, and his work was in the permanent collection of the Delgado Museum for many years. The artist worked at his studio at 320 Exchange Place in the picturesque Vieux Carré until his death at the age of sixty-three. Stewart (in Painting in the South, 1983), describes how Drysdale was a shrewd businessman. He would solicit new homeowners who might need a canvas to decorate a wall, or a cotton broker who recently made the headlines. Drysdale died in New Orleans, on February 9, 1934. Sources: Louisiana Artists from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. James W. Nelson. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University, 1968; Wiesendanger, Martin and Margaret Wiesendanger, Nineteenth Century Louisiana Painters and Paintings from the Collection of W. E. Groves. New Orleans: W. E. Groves Gallery, 1971, pp. 44-45; Painting in the South: 1584-1980, Exh. cat. Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum, 1983, pp. 106-107, 114, 276; Chambers, Bruce W., Art and Artists of the South: The Robert P. Coggins Collection of American Paintings. Exh. cat. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, 1984, p. 88; Zellman, Michael David, 300 Years of American Art. Seacacus, NJ: Wellfleet Press, 1987, p. 634; Gerdts, William H., Art across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting, 1710-1920. New York: Abbeville Press, 1990, vol. 2, pp. 110-111. Submitted by Richard H. Love and Michael Preston Worley, Ph.D. Biography from The Johnson Collection ALEXANDER JOHN DRYSDALE (1870–1934) Born in Marietta, Georgia, Alexander John Drysdale was the only son of an ordained Episcopal priest whose ministry required frequent moves to parishes in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. In 1883, he accepted the call to become dean of Christ Church Cathedral, New Orleans, and was later elected a bishop. Alexander, thirteen years old when the family settled in New Orleans, began his art studies under the instruction of Ida C. Haskell, a California-born artist who was on the faculty of the recently established Southern Art Union. The local academy had been founded by several leading artists, including Andres Molinary, William Henry Buck...

Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Houston Artist Image Size: 10.5 x 14 Frame Size: 17 x 20.5 Medium: Watercolor on Paper Dated 1946 "Talco School" High School Talco Texas Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Edward Muegge Schiwetz was a painter whose work recorded the state of Texas from the country to the city. In addition, Schiwetz was a magazine illustrator, graphic artist, writer, preservationist, and architect.Edward Schiwetz was born and raised in Cuero, Texas and learned to draw and paint under the instruction of his mother. He graduated from Cuero High School (1916) and received a baccalaureate in architecture from Texas A & M college, College Station...

Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Houston Artist Image Size: 11.25 x 13.5 Frame Size: 17.75 x 19.5 Medium: Watercolor on Paper Dated 1951 "Powerlines" Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Edward Muegge Schiwetz was a painter whose work recorded the state of Texas from the country to the city. In addition, Schiwetz was a magazine illustrator, graphic artist, writer, preservationist, and architect.Edward Schiwetz was born and raised in Cuero, Texas and learned to draw and paint under the instruction of his mother. He graduated from Cuero High School (1916) and received a baccalaureate in architecture from Texas A & M college, College Station...

Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Houston Artist Image Size: 9 x 11.75 Frame Size: 15.25 x 17.75 Medium: Watercolor on Paper "Oil Field" Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Edward Muegge Schiwetz was a painter whose work recorded the state of Texas from the country to the city. In addition, Schiwetz was a magazine illustrator, graphic artist, writer, preservationist, and architect.Edward Schiwetz was born and raised in Cuero, Texas and learned to draw and paint under the instruction of his mother. He graduated from Cuero High School (1916) and received a baccalaureate in architecture from Texas A & M college, College Station...

Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Houston Artist Image Size: 10 x 15.5 Framed Size: 16.5 x 22 Medium: Pencil/charcoal on Paper Unsigned from his estate "Dallas" Cityscape Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Dallas Skyline by E. M. “Buck” Schiwetz — 1961 by Paula Bosse This drawing reminds me of those wonderful telephone book covers (the ones with all the hidden jokes and intricate details) that I used to pore over as a child. (By the way, when clicked, this image is absolutely HUMONGOUS.) From the booklet Five Years Forward: The Dallas Public Library, 1955-1960 (more of which can be accessed here). Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved. Edward Muegge Schiwetz was a painter whose work recorded the state of Texas from the country to the city. In addition, Schiwetz was a magazine illustrator, graphic artist, writer, preservationist, and architect. Edward Schiwetz was born and raised in Cuero, Texas and learned to draw and paint under the instruction of his mother. He graduated from Cuero High School (1916) and received a baccalaureate in architecture from Texas A & M college, College Station...

Jose Arpa (1858-1952) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 15.5 x 11.5 Frame Size: 25.5 x 21.5 Medium: Watercolor "The Guitarist" Biography Jose Arpa (1858-1952) Born in Carmona, Spain, Jo...

Gary Ray 1952 California Artist Image Size: 24 x 30 Frame Size: 33 x 39 Medium: Oil on Board Dated 2004 "California Poppies" Biography Gary Ray 1952 Gary Ray ...

Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 25 x 30 Frame Size: 34 x 39 Medium: Oil on Canvas Circa 1950 "Lazy Day Blues" Texas Bluebonnet Biography Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) Porfirio Salinas was a self-taught artist who painted landscapes of Central Texas with an emphasis on the vast bluebonnet fields that grow there in the springtime. Born in 1910 in Bastrop, Texas, he attended public schools in San Antonio. He also observed works in progress by the director of the San Antonio Art School, Jose Arpa, as well as landscape painter, Robert Wood. Wood is said to have paid Salinas five dollars a picture to paint bluebonnets because "he hated to paint bluebonnets". Salinas served in the military from 1943 to 1945. Although he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, he was allowed to live at home. At the fort, Colonel Telesphor Gottchalk assigned him to paint murals for the officer's lounge and various other projects, and Salinas continued to be able to paint during his entire conscripted period. Even before he achieved notoriety among galleries, dealers, and museums, Salinas was widely followed and appreciated by many Texans, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who may be considered responsible for launching Salinas popularity beyond the boundaries of Texas. In 1973, Texas capital, Austin, honored Salinas for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas closer together with his paintings". Salinas died in April 1973 in San Antonio, Texas. From the years of the Great Depression through President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, Texan Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) remained one of the Lone Star State's most popular artists. Today, his works remain popular with Texas collectors and those who love landscapes of the beautiful "Hill Country" that lies in the center of the state. One of the first Mexican American painters to become widely recognized for his art, Salinas was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, as well as of Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Governor John Connelly. In fact, President Johnson was so enamored with his Salinas paintings that the artist will forever be associated with America's first Texas-born President. Works by Porfirio Salinas is in a number of museum collections, grace the halls of the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Austin, and are included in virtually every major private collection of Early Texas Art. Porfirio Salinas was born on November 6, 1910, near the small town of Bastrop, Texas, about thirty miles from Austin. His father, Porfirio G. Salinas (1881-1967), and his mother, Clara G. Chavez, struggled to make a hardscrabble living as tenant farmers, but eventually were forced to give up farming. The family moved to San Antonio, where Salinas' father was able to get a job working as a laborer for the railroad, but the scenic area around Bastrop, with its pine trees and the wide expanse of the Rio Grande River, would forever remain a touchstone for the artist. For the rest of his life, Salinas and his brothers went back frequently to visit their grandmother in her little farmhouse. When in Bastrop, Porfirio painted on the banks of the Rio Grande or in the groves of pine trees. The Salinas family was close-knit, and Porfirio was the middle child of five children, so he had an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother and sister. His mother was a native of Mexico, so throughout his childhood the family made the long drive to Mexico to visit Clara Salinas' family. As a child growing up in the bi-lingual section of San Antonio, Salinas drew and painted incessantly and by the time he was ten, he was already producing work that was mature enough to sell to his schoolteachers. Many years later in an article in the New York Times he was described as a "boy whose textbooks were seldom opened and whose sketchbook was never closed." Instead of studying, the young artist spent his spare time watching artists paint in and around San Antonio. As an aspiring painter, Salinas was fortunate to grow up in the historic city, which had the most active art scene in Texas. It was his exposure to older, professional painters that encouraged the precocious young painter to leave school early in order to help his family and pursue a career as a professional artist, despite his father's inability to see art as a career with any future for his son. When Salinas was about fifteen he came to know the artist Robert W. Wood (1889-1979). He met Wood while he was employed in an art supply store and he soon began to work as an assistant to the English-born painter, who had moved from Portland to San Antonio in 1924. Although the diminutive Englishman was already an established professional artist, he did not have a great deal of formal art training and so he was then studying with the academically trained Spanish painter Jose Arpa (1858-1952) in order to augment his knowledge and give his work a more polished look. Salinas was an eager young man, and while working in Wood's downtown San Antonio studio he learned to stretch canvases, frame paintings and to sketch in larger compositions from small plein-air studies for the English artist. He began to accompany Wood and Arpa to the hills outside San Antonio, where they painted small Plein-air studies of fields of blue lupin - the state flower, the famous "Bluebonnets" of Texas - in the springtime and scenes of the gnarled Red Oaks as they changed color in the fall. He was soon assisting Wood in the tedious work of painting the tiny blue flowers that collectors wanted to see in the landscapes they purchased of central Texas. According to a 1972 newspaper story, "Legend has it that one day in the 1920s artist Robert Wood decided he could not bear to paint another bluebonnet in one of his landscapes. He hired young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in for him at five dollars a painting." Whether this story is accurate or apocryphal isn't clear, but the ambitious and independent young Salinas wasn't destined to be anyone's assistant for very long. The formative event of Porfirio Salinas' teenage years was the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, a Roaring-Twenties dream of the eccentric oilman Edgar B. Davis (1873-1951). These competitive shows of paintings of wildflowers and Texas life were mounted in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929. Held at the newly opened Witte Museum each spring, the exhibition featured large cash prizes donated by the philanthropic Davis, which were an inducement for artists to travel from all over the United States to paint in the Hill Country of Texas. The "Davis Competitions," as they were known, helped to cement San Antonio's reputation as an art center, a legacy that remains with the "River City" today. The shows generated a great deal of excitement in the area, helping to make celebrities of the some of the artists who had already settled there and encouraging others to make San Antonio their home. Over the three years that the wildflower competitions were held, more than 300 paintings were exhibited, and many thousands of viewers saw the paintings at the Witte Museum and on tours throughout the state and in New York. Each year Davis would generously purchase the winning paintings and then donate them to the San Antonio Art League. Young Porfirio Salinas would have been able to not only watch his two mentors - Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa - paint the works that they entered in the Davis Competitions, he would have been able to see Arpa take several of the major prizes, receiving the judge's accolades for "Verbena," "Cactus Flower" and "Picking Cotton," works that are still on view at the San Antonio Art League Museum today. Unfortunately, Davis eventually put his donations to work in other charitable endeavors, bringing to an end the wildflower events, but only after they inspired Salinas and other young painters and had helped to make wildflower paintings the most sought-after subject for traditionalist Texas collectors. In 1930, when he was only twenty, Salinas hung out a shingle and began to paint professionally, augmenting the sales of his easel paintings with what little business he could garner by painting signs for local concerns. It was a struggle for the young artist to make a living, as the effects of the Great Depression were settling in. His early works are very similar to those of Robert Wood's, both in subject matter and treatment. Salinas did small paintings of Bluebonnets for the tourists who visited San Antonio to see the famous Alamo as well as paintings of the Texas missions...

Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 30 x 40 Frame Size: 39 x 49 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dated 1957 "Bluebonnet Creek" Texas Hill Country Biography Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) Porfirio Salinas was a self-taught artist who painted landscapes of Central Texas with an emphasis on the vast bluebonnet fields that grow there in the springtime. Born in 1910 in Bastrop, Texas, he attended public schools in San Antonio. He also observed works in progress by the director of the San Antonio Art School, Jose Arpa, as well as landscape painter, Robert Wood. Wood is said to have paid Salinas five dollars a picture to paint bluebonnets because "he hated to paint bluebonnets". Salinas served in the military from 1943 to 1945. Although he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, he was allowed to live at home. At the fort, Colonel Telesphor Gottchalk assigned him to paint murals for the officer's lounge and various other projects, and Salinas continued to be able to paint during his entire conscripted period. Even before he achieved notoriety among galleries, dealers, and museums, Salinas was widely followed and appreciated by many Texans, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who may be considered responsible for launching Salinas popularity beyond the boundaries of Texas. In 1973, Texas capital, Austin, honored Salinas for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas closer together with his paintings". Salinas died in April 1973 in San Antonio, Texas. From the years of the Great Depression through President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, Texan Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) remained one of the Lone Star State's most popular artists. Today, his works remain popular with Texas collectors and those who love landscapes of the beautiful "Hill Country" that lies in the center of the state. One of the first Mexican American painters to become widely recognized for his art, Salinas was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, as well as of Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Governor John Connelly. In fact, President Johnson was so enamored with his Salinas paintings that the artist will forever be associated with America's first Texas-born President. Works by Porfirio Salinas are in a number of museum collections, grace the halls of the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Austin, and are included in virtually every major private collection of Early Texas Art. Porfirio Salinas was born on November 6, 1910, near the small town of Bastrop, Texas, about thirty miles from Austin. His father, Porfirio G. Salinas (1881-1967), and his mother, Clara G. Chavez, struggled to make a hardscrabble living as tenant farmers, but eventually were forced to give up farming. The family moved to San Antonio, where Salinas' father was able to get a job working as a laborer for the railroad, but the scenic area around Bastrop, with its pine trees and the wide expanse of the Rio Grande River, would forever remain a touchstone for the artist. For the rest of his life, Salinas and his brothers went back frequently to visit their grandmother in her little farmhouse. When in Bastrop, Porfirio painted on the banks of the Rio Grande or in the groves of pine trees. The Salinas family was close-knit and Porfirio was the middle child of five children, so he had an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother and sister. His mother was a native of Mexico, so throughout his childhood the family made the long drive to Mexico to visit Clara Salinas' family. As a child growing up in the bi-lingual section of San Antonio, Salinas drew and painted incessantly and by the time he was ten, he was already producing work that was mature enough to sell to his schoolteachers. Many years later in an article in the New York Times he was described as a "boy whose textbooks were seldom opened and whose sketchbook was never closed." Instead of studying, the young artist spent his spare time watching artists paint in and around San Antonio. As an aspiring painter, Salinas was fortunate to grow up in the historic city, which had the most active art scene in Texas. It was his exposure to older, professional painters that encouraged the precocious young painter to leave school early in order to help his family and pursue a career as a professional artist, despite his father's inability to see art as a career with any future for his son. When Salinas was about fifteen he came to know the artist Robert W. Wood (1889-1979). He met Wood while he was employed in an art supply store and he soon began to work as an assistant to the English-born painter, who had moved from Portland to San Antonio in 1924. Although the diminutive Englishman was already an established professional artist, he did not have a great deal of formal art training and so he was then studying with the academically trained Spanish painter Jose Arpa (1858-1952) in order to augment his knowledge and give his work a more polished look. Salinas was an eager young man, and while working in Wood's downtown San Antonio studio he learned to stretch canvases, frame paintings and to sketch in larger compositions from small plein-air studies for the English artist. He began to accompany Wood and Arpa to the hills outside San Antonio, where they painted small Plein-air studies of fields of blue lupin - the state flower, the famous "Bluebonnets" of Texas - in the springtime and scenes of the gnarled Red Oaks as they changed color in the fall. He was soon assisting Wood in the tedious work of painting the tiny blue flowers that collectors wanted to see in the landscapes they purchased of central Texas. According to a 1972 newspaper story, "Legend has it that one day in the 1920s artist Robert Wood decided he could not bear to paint another bluebonnet in one of his landscapes. He hired young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in for him at five dollars a painting." Whether this story is accurate or apocryphal isn't clear, but the ambitious and independent young Salinas wasn't destined to be anyone's assistant for very long. The formative event of Porfirio Salinas' teenage years was the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, a Roaring-Twenties dream of the eccentric oilman Edgar B. Davis (1873-1951). These competitive shows of paintings of wildflowers and Texas life were mounted in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929. Held at the newly opened Witte Museum each spring, the exhibition featured large cash prizes donated by the philanthropic Davis, which were an inducement for artists to travel from all over the United States to paint in the Hill Country of Texas. The "Davis Competitions," as they were known, helped to cement San Antonio's reputation as an art center, a legacy that remains with the "River City" today. The shows generated a great deal of excitement in the area, helping to make celebrities of the some of the artists who had already settled there and encouraging others to make San Antonio their home. Over the three years that the wildflower competitions were held, more than 300 paintings were exhibited, and many thousands of viewers saw the paintings at the Witte Museum and on tours throughout the state and in New York. Each year Davis would generously purchase the winning paintings and then donate them to the San Antonio Art League. Young Porfirio Salinas would have been able to not only watch his two mentors - Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa - paint the works that they entered in the Davis Competitions, he would have been able to see Arpa take several of the major prizes, receiving the judge's accolades for "Verbena," "Cactus Flower" and "Picking Cotton," works that are still on view at the San Antonio Art League Museum today. Unfortunately, Davis eventually put his donations to work in other charitable endeavors, bringing to an end the wildflower events, but only after they inspired Salinas and other young painters and had helped to make wildflower paintings the most sought-after subject for traditionalist Texas collectors. In 1930, when he was only twenty, Salinas hung out a shingle and began to paint professionally, augmenting the sales of his easel paintings with what little business he could garner by painting signs for local concerns. It was a struggle for the young artist to make a living, as the effects of the Great Depression were settling in. His early works are very similar to those of Robert Wood's, both in subject matter and treatment. Salinas did small paintings of Bluebonnets for the tourists who visited San Antonio to see the famous Alamo as well as paintings of the Texas missions...

Scy Caroselli Colorado Artist Image Size: 11 x 10 x 9 Medium: Bronze "Morning Market" Scy has been surrounded by fine art throughout her entire life. She grew up beside the easel and sculpting stand...

Scy Caroselli Colorado Artist Image Size: 25 inches tall Medium: Bronze "Wine Dance" Scy has been surrounded by fine art throughout her entire life. She grew up beside the easel and ...

Robert Harrison (Born 1949) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 36 x 48 Frame Size: 44 x 56 Medium: Oil on canvas Dated 1999 "Coreopsis & Daggers" Texas Hill Country. Wildflowers Biograph...

John William Hilton (1904 - 1983) California Artist Image Size: 18 x 24 Frame Size: 26.5 x 32.5 Medium: Oil on Panel "Navajo Medicine Man" Biography John William Hilton (1904 - 1983) Born in Carrington, North Dakota, John Hilton is known for desert landscape painting as well as scenes with cowboys, horses, and cattle. He was also a poet, musician, geologist, miner, and entertainer. His father was a baker, and the family lived in a shack on a farm. When he was four, he went to China with his mother and father, who became a missionary. There he met Chinese bandits, philosophers, and walked along the Great Wall by the time he was age 10. The family was separated during the Sun Yat Sen revolution, and thinking the father was dead, the mother returned to North Dakota where the father eventually found them. John moved to Los Angeles in 1918 and worked for a gem company, but it folded during the Depression. Then he designed jewelry for Hollywood film stars and sold stones world wide. In the 1930s, financially broke, he moved to the desert determined to become a painter and supporting himself as a singer and guitar player. He also operated a curio shop near Indio, California, and from that time lived either in the desert or at Twenty-Nine Palms. Sketching trips with Maynard Dixon, Nicolai Fechin, Jimmy...

Paul Grimm (1891-1974) California Artist Image Size: 24 x 30 Frame Size: 31 x 37 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dated 1953 "Pala Mission" The San Antonio de Pala Asistencia, or the "Pala Mission", was founded on June 13, 1816, as an asistencia or "sub-mission" to Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, some twenty miles inland upstream from the latter mission on the San Luis Rey River. Pala Mission was part of the Spanish missions, asistencias, and estancias system in Las Californias—Alta California. Today it is located in the Pala Indian Reservation located in northern San Diego County, with the official name of Mission San Antonio de Pala.[2][4] It is the only historic mission facility still serving a Mission Indian tribe. Pala (a derivation of the native term Pale, meaning water) was essentially a small rancho surrounded by large fields and herds. The Pala site had been noted by Father Juan Mariner and Captain Juan Pablo Grijalva on an exploratory trip in 1795, when they went up the San Diego River, and then through Sycamore Canyon to the Santa Maria Valley (or Pamó Valley) and into what they named El Valle de San José, now known as Warner Springs. Once Mission San Luis Rey began to prosper, it attracted the attention of numerous mountain Native Americans in the area, who were called the Luiseño by the Spanish. Spanish era The Franciscan fathers chose this site for the Pala Mission because it was a traditional gathering place and village for the Native American residents. Father Peyrí oversaw the addition of a chapel and housing to the granary complex, which was constructed at the spot in 1810.[4] The chapel's interior wall surfaces featured paintings by native artists, originally measuring 144 by 27 feet. Workers went into the Palomar Mountains and cut down cedar trees to use as roof beams.[5] Pala is unique among all of the Franciscan missions in that it boasts the only completely freestanding campanile, or "bell tower," in all of Alta California. By 1820, some 1,300 baptisms had been performed at the outpost.[6] Folk tales about the mission include mention of a prickly pear cactus, which became a local symbol of Christian victory, that grew up at the foot of the cross.[7] Mexican era After the nation achieved independence from Spain, the Mexican Congress passed An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California on August 17, 1833 (the act was ratified in 1834).[8] Father Buenaventura Fortuna surrendered Mission San Luis Rey and all its holdings, including Las Flores Estancia and the Pala Asistencia, to government comisianados (commissioners) Pío Pico and Pablo de la Portillà on August 22, 1835; the assessed value of "Rancho de Pala" was $15,363.25.[9] More than a decade later, fearful of the impending conquest of Alta California by the United States as a result of the Mexican–American War...

Barbara Mauldin Fredericksburg Artist Image Size: 15 x 30 Frame Size: 22 x 36 Medium: Oil on canvas "Willow City Still Life" Texas Hill Country Landscape Barbara and her husband Chu...

Robert Harrison (Born 1949) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 30 x 40 Frame Size: 38 x 48 Medium: Oil on Canvas "As Blue As it Gets" Texas Hill Country Bluebonnets Biography Robert Harr...

Robert Harrison (Born 1949) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 36 x 48 Frame Size: 44 x 56 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dated 2007 "Summers Gold" Texas Hill Country. Exhibited Lady Bird Johnson...

Robert Harrison (Born 1949) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 30 x 40 Frame Size: 40 X 50 Medium: Oil on Canvas "Coreopsis and Cacti" Texas Hill Country Biography Robert Harrison (Born ...

Robert Harrison (Born 1949) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 24 x 30 Frame Size: 30 x 36 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dated 2010 "A Texas Trail" Hill Country Blooming Prickly Pear Cactus Biog...

Vintage Western Movie Posters Image Size: 41 x 27 Frame Size: 46.75 X 32.75 Medium: Print Circa 1940s "Flaming Bullets"

Vintage Western Movie Posters Image Size: 41 x 27 Frame Size: 46 x 32.25 Medium: Print 1948 "Prairie Outlaws"

Vintage Western Movie Posters Image Size: 36 x 14 Frame Size: 41 x 19 Medium: Lithograph 1940s "Wild Horse Stampede"

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 18 x 24 Frame Size: 25 x 31 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dated 1967 "Rough Coast" Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious abo...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 24 x 36 Frame Size: 30.5 x 42.5 Medium: Oil "Hill Country Creek" Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious about Pedro L...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 8 x 10 Frame Size: 15.75 x 17.75 Medium: Oil "Bluebonnet Hills" Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious about Pedro La...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 12 x 16 Frame Size: 17.25 x 21.25 Medium: Oil "Bluebonnet Hill Top" Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious about Pedr...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 20 x 24 Frame Size: 27.25 x 31.25 Medium: Oil "Hill Country Home" Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious about Pedro ...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 16 x 20 Frame Size: 24.75 x 28.75 Medium: Oil "Long View" Texas Hill Country Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious a...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 18 x 24 Frame Size: 25.5 x 31.5 Medium: Oil "Watering Hole" Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious about Pedro Lazcan...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 16 x 20 Frame Size: 23 x 27 Medium: Oil on Canvas "Bluebonnet and Huisache" Texas Hill Country Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I wa...

Frank Weston Benson (1862-1951) Massachusetts Image Size: 15.5 x 15.5 Frame Size: 23.25 x 27.25 Medium: Charcoal on Paper Dated 1930 "Two Mallards Biography Frank Weston Benson (1862...

Fred Darge (1900-1978) Dallas Image Size: 18 x 24 Frame Size: 27.5 x 33.5 Medium: Oil on Board "Approaching Storm" Biography Fred Darge (1900-1978) Friedrich Ernst Darge Born: March ...

Manuel Garza (Born 1949) Texas Artist Image Size: 9 x 12 Frame Size: 15.25 x 18.25 Medium: Oil on Canvas "Bluebonnet Fence" Biography Manuel Garza (Born 1949) Growing up in Central T...

Carl Hoppe 1897-1981 San Antonio Artist Image Size: 22 x 36 Frame Size: 26.25 x 40.25 Medium: Oil on Canvas "Creek in Leon Valley" Biography Carl Hoppe 1897-1981 Carl Thomas Hoppe...

Eric Harrison (Born 1971) Texas Hill Country Artist Image Size: 48 x 72 Frame Size: 61 x 86 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas "Summer's Beckoning" Bio Eric H...

Don Crowley (1926-2019) Arizona / California Western Artist Image Size: 11 x 13 Frame Size: 18 x 20 Medium: Gouache Study "After Glow" Indian Girl with her...

Don Crowley (1926-2019) Arizona / California Western Artist Image Size: 20 x 24 Frame Size: 33 x 37 Medium: Oil "The Seamstress" Indian Weaver Native Ameri...

John Austin Hanna Born 1942 Fredericksburg Artist Image Size: 24 x 48 Frame Size: 28 x 52 Medium: Oil on Canvas Mercedes Benz 300SL "Gullwing" Coupe Ralph Lauren's personal vehicle Biography John Austin Hanna Born 1942 John Austin Hanna - Fredericksburg, Texas John graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in Advertising Art & Design. As a 20-year illustrator in New York and Dallas he has been published in several magazines such as Automotive Quarterly, Car and Driver, Saga, Town & Country, Flying, Popular Boating, and Popular Science. He has also done work for several large corporations such as Mercedes, Volkswagen, Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin, Borden’s, Pearl Beer...

John Austin Hanna Born 1942 Fredericksburg Artist Image Size: 40 x 30 Frame Size: 51 x 41 Medium: Oil on Canvas 1996 "Fresh Flowers" Biography John Austin Hanna Born 1942 John Austin Hanna - Fredericksburg, Texas John graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in Advertising Art & Design. As a 20-year illustrator in New York and Dallas he has been published in several magazines such as Automotive Quarterly, Car and Driver...

Palmer Chrisman (1913 - 1984) Austin Artist Image Size: 20 x 24 Frame Size: 25 x 29 Medium: Oil "Path in the Hills" Texas Hill Country Palmer Chrisman (1913 - 1984) Palmer Chrisman ...

Lester Hughes (1938-2021) El Paso Artist Image Size: 24 x 36 Frame Size: 30 x 42 Medium: Oil "Lost and Found" West Texas Cattle STRAYS Biography Lester Hughes (1938-2021) From El Pas...

Ward Lockwood (1894 - 1963) New Mexico, Texas, Kansas / Mexico Artist Image Size: 12 x 16 Frame Size: 17.75 x 21.75 Medium: Charcoal "Siesta By The Oven" Biography Ward Lockwood (1894 - 1963) Born in Atchison, Kansas, Ward Lockwood became a key painter in the Taos, New Mexico art colony, but diverse modernist art styles including Expressionism*, Cubism*, Surrealism* and Constructivism* reflected his wide ranging travels in Europe and the United States. From the 1920s to the 1960s, his work embraced a series of stylistic changes characteristic of people who influenced him, including John Marin and Andrew Dasburg. He studied at the University of Kansas, and from 1914 to 1917 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts* where he was introduced to Modernism*. In 1917, he began a two-year enlistment in the Army and served in France, and in 1921, a return visit to France led to his being influenced by Paul Cezanne and Vincent Van Gogh. During this time, he studied in Paris at the Academie Ranson*, but got bored with the academic climate of that school and spent time at the Louvre and galleries along the Rue de la Boetie. He painted from local models and traveled around France with fellow Kansan, Kenneth Adams. He was much impressed with the diversity of contemporary art movements including Futurism*, Cubism, and Dadaism*. His work from this period shows influences of Geometric Abstraction* and Impressionism. In 1922, he returned to Kansas, committed to the idea that an artist does best painting in his own culture. He worked as a commercial artist and also did portrait commissions. In 1926, he and his wife, artist Clyde Bonebrake, moved to Taos, New Mexico because of his friendship with Kenneth Adams, who was already established there. Lockwood became interested in the Taos Society of Artists...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist "Grace in the Storm" John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was designated Texas State Artist 2010 by the 81st Texas Legislature....

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 27 tall x 12 x 8 Medium: Bronze Sculpture "If Wishes Were Horses" Western John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was ...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 19 x 13 x 9 Medium: Bronze Sculpture "Fiesta Song" Accordion Player John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was design...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 26 x 12 x 8 Medium: Bronze Sculpture "La Dolce Vita" The Sweet Life! John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was desig...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 26 tall x 12 x 8 Medium: Bronze Sculpture "Frida's Wedding" Frida Kahlo John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was de...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 19 x 15 x 19 Medium: Bronze Sculpture "The Guardian" Western John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was designated Te...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 14 Tall x 7 x 7 Medium: Bronze Sculpture "Maiden's Honor" Zuni John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was designated ...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 36 tall x 13 x 14 Medium: Bronze "Willow" John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was designated Texas State Artist 20...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 25 x 18 x 4 Medium: Bronze "Belle Starr" John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was designated Texas State Artist 201...

John Bennett (Born 1952) Fredericksburg, Texas Artist Image Size: 22 x 37 across x 10 Medium: Bronze "Horse Tamer" John Bennett (Born 1952) John Bennett was designated Texas State Ar...