Being re-introduced to the Houston community

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After 25 good years with Meredith Long and Company it was time for a change, and I have joined the William Reaves Art Gallery in Houston.

The Reaves Gallery represents a very small group of Contemporary Texas Regionalist artists – only 15 other artists – who paint in either a style or subject matter directly inspired by earlier Texas masters who were at work in the early decades of the twentieth century.

I have a lot of respect for Bill’s vision and mission and my intuition says it will be a good fit. He has been active in the early Texas art community for over thirty years as a collector, author and guest curator.

The timing is great as he has just moved his gallery out of its former residential location on Brun Street in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston to a more accessible, more visible and larger location on Westheimer (just west of Shepherd).

To that end, he is “re-introducing” me to the Houston community with a little retrospective exhibition in his new space that will open on Friday, October 17th. He wants to show work from every stage of my development (which makes me feel a little old but its also one of the things I like about the gallery’s mission with its interest in historic overview – (there aren’t too many galleries showing contemporary work with that sort of focus); the show will feature about 20 works going back to 1981 (the year before I moved to Houston). I am excited to be re-connecting with the Houston community again.


 

BUMBLEBEES AND HORSEMINT watercolor 16x16 copy

BUMBLEBEES AND HORSEMINT 16 x 16″ watercolor

 

My show, EPHEMERA, at the BRIT is on view through Mid- November!

EPHEMERA:Winged Creatures of Texas, will be on view at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas here in Ft. Worth through mid-November (Ft. Worth Botanic Gardens, Hours: Monday through Friday 10AM – 5 PM).

 

 


 

On a more personal note…

 

wheat fields

WHEATFIELD WITH CROWS

Emily and I just returned from a two and a half week long trip to Europe which was intended to be our belated honeymoon. We started in Paris where we spent four nights, the highlight of which was a daytrip pilgrimage to the small town of Auver-sur-Oise (about 20 miles north of Paris) to visit the last home and eternal resting place of Vincent Van Gogh (and his brother Theo). I wa amazed to learn many things I didn’t know about Van Gogh, most notably that he only lived there for 70 days and during that brief time produced over 80 paintings many of which are the ones considered to be his classic masterpieces including his last painting.

 

billy watercoloringAfter spending a little time in the room where he slept and worked, and walking through the village and countryside around the town visiting the various spots he immortalized I spent an hour or so watercoloring a view of the river Oise wondering if Vincent had ever contemplated the same view. For anyone interested in Vincent Van Gogh I highly recommend a visit to Auvers-sur-Oise.

 

 

altarpiece

Detail of the Altarpiece

From Paris we took a train to the town of Colmar, on the Swiss border, to see the region and visit the Unterlinden museum which is best known as the home of the Issenheim Alterpiece by Matthias Grunwald. It was truly amazing to see this elaborate masterpiece in real life.

 

 

Enjoy October!

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