The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has announced that its new 30-artist exhibition, The Art of Texas State Parks, will travel around the state in 2023 and 2024. The show debuted on January 7 at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, where it will remain until April 30. Subsequently it can be seen at the Houston Museum of Natural Science from May 26 through October 1, and at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon from October 27 until February 18 of next year. In 2024 the exhibit will also travel to College Station, Albany, and Tyler.
Billy Hassell, “Blue Heron, Big Cypress Bayou, Caddo Lake State Park,” oil on canvas. Collection of John Sapp, courtesy of Billy Hassell, Forth Worth.
The exhibition has been launched to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Texas State Parks. According to a press release from TPWD, the goal of the exhibit is to bring awareness to state parks by following the path of the National Parks System’s lengthy collaboration with artists. TPWD describes the show as “a visual arts survey of state parks featuring more than 30 parks by some of Texas’ most celebrated artists.” These artists include Randy Bacon, Mary Baxter, David Caton, Charles Criner, Margie Crisp, Ric Dentinger, Fidencio Duran, Janet Eager Krueger, Joel Edwards, Malou Fato, Gordon Fowler, Pat Gabriel, David Griffin, Brian Grimm, Clemente Guzman, Karl E. Hall, John Austin Hanna, Billy Hassell, Hailey Herrera, Lee Jamison, Denise Mahlke, Jim Malone, Talmage Minter, William Montgomery, Kermit Oliver, Noe Perez, Jeri Salter, Jim Stoker, Bob Stuth-Wade, and Terri Wells. Karl E. Hall’s 2020 exhibition at the Houston gallery Foltz Fine Arts, titled Inspired Visions: The Art of Karl E. Hall, was the subject of a Glasstire five minute tour that April.
In fact, Foltz lists half of the exhibition’s participating artists on its roster. The gallery offered for sale thirty representative works in an exhibition last summer, in conjunction with TPWD, where twenty five percent of profits benefitted Texas State Parks.
Additional funding for the park system will be gathered from sales of a The Art of Texas State Parks exhibition catalog, authored by Andrew Sansom and Linda J. Reaves and published by Texas A&M Press. In the press release from TPWD, Mr. Sansom stated, “it is our fervent hope that these works of art will inspire present and future generations of Texans to forever appreciate and protect their parks.”
The exhibit was supported in part by H-E-B. The grocery retailer donated $1 million to TPWD on the occasion of the system’s centennial. “We are grateful for the partnership that is bringing The Art of Texas State Parks to museums across Texas, spreading the message about these natural treasures that belong to us all,” TPWD Executive Director David Yoskowitz, Ph.D. said in the organization’s statement.
For more information on the TPWD centennial, please go here.
