San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

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ALL ABOUT TEXAS

 

January 21 thru April 3, 2011

The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts is pleased to announce the opening of a series of new exhibits each exploring the Texas landscape and appropriately titled, All About Texas. Four different artists will be exhibiting their work --- Bob Stuth-Wade, Walt Davis, Mary Baxter and Josephine Oliver. The Opening Reception is scheduled for Friday, January 21, 2011 from 6 to 9 pm at the museum. This event is free and open to the public and will feature refreshments and dance music provided by San Angelo’s own country swing band, Clearwater.

Artist Bob Stuth-Wade has been painting since his high school days. Largely self – taught, this artist, now in his fifties, continues to produce an astounding body of work. Born in Norfolk, Virginia he has resided in Texas most of his life. He never received formal art training other than being a protégé of Dallas artist Perry Nichols. He had his first one-man exhibit in 1971 at the Fairmount Gallery at the age of 18 with a body of work focused on meticulously rendered and composed portraits of residents in a farming community in far North Dallas. Over the years, in a constant state of self-examination and materials exploration, his work evolved through a period of pure abstraction to almost hyper-realism and back to a place closer to representational expressionism. Through all this time, he continues to paint Texas. His favorite places are Big Bend, the Texas Gulf Coast and the region around his home in Dublin.

Texas seen through the eyes of artists continues with a collection of watercolors by Walt Davis in the exhibit Exploring the Edges of Texas, which is also the title of a book by Walt and his wife Isabel. The paintings were accomplished during a 5 year, 4,000 mile long journey following the Texas border that Walt and Isabel embarked upon in 2005.The Davis’s made multiple trips to different border areas, with Isabel keeping travel journals and research notes, Walt serving as "the expedition artist," and both writing about their adventures and observations. Past director of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum and former curator of exhibits at the Dallas Museum of Natural History, Davis has been painting in watercolor for over thirty years.

Mary Baxter was born in Lubbock and raised in San Antonio, but it is the Chihuahuan Desert that has claimed her. Ever since family camping trips there as a young girl she has been drawn to this region. She graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1987 where she studied painting and advanced printmaking. In 1995 Baxter moved to a ranch an hour southwest of Marfa where she helped raise yearlings and trained horses. There she began to see the beauty of the landscape and started painting the rugged desert. After several years she was able to quit ranch work and paint full-time. She moved to Marathon in 2002 and opened the Baxter Studio and Gallery, where she continues to make and sell her work

Josephine Oliver (1908 – 1991) was a Paris, Texas native who became a student of Frank Reaugh, one of Texas’ most respected artists and art teachers, commonly referred to as the “Dean of Texas Painters.” Josephine started working with him at age 12 and as her talents rapidly advanced she soon became Reaugh’s teaching assistant. In 1923 she accompanied Reaugh and a group of his students on a month-long trip to sketch with pastels the beautiful landscape and sky of West Texas. These trips continued over another 10 years. The talented young artist was also a skilled musician and by 1929 she was a member of the second violin section of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. In 1935 she married noted Dallas artist Olin Travis. At that time she focused on her musical abilities and became a violinist with both the San Antonio and Dallas Symphony Orchestras. She remained active in professional music circles for many years, retiring from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1977. She died in Dallas in 1991.

This exhibit has been sponsored by Lee and Candy Pfluger. The museum wishes to thank Valley House Gallery, Dallas, for their help in organizing this exhibit and for the loan of work from Bob Stuth-Wade and Josephine Oliver.

For more information on any of the exhibits please call the museum at 653-3333. The museum’s regular operating hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for senior citizens. ASU and SAISD students are admitted free
as well as museum members and military personnel.

The museum is supported by generous contributions from both individuals and businesses. This project is partially supported by funds from the San Angelo Cultural Affairs Council, the City of San Angelo, the Texas Commission on the Arts, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.