Show Preview | Women Artists in Texas - Southwest Art Magazine

Houston, TX
Foltz Fine Art, September 14-October 26

Florence McClung, Bluebonnet Landscape, oil, 20 x 24.

This story was featured in the October 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art October 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

THIS MONTH, Foltz Fine Art in Houston, TX, presents Voices Linger: Women Artists in Texas, a survey exhibition featuring artwork by women artists in the Lone Star State, from early impressionism through mid-century modernism.

The concept for the exhibition has been brewing at the gallery for a few years, after several “rediscovery” exhibitions highlighting the careers of women like Cynthia Brants, Emma Richardson Cherry, Mildred Norris Compton, Constance Forsyth, and Emily Rutland. With the recent publication of the ambitious book 250 Years of Texas Art by museum professional Ron Tyler, gallery owner Sarah Foltz thought it would be perfect timing to launch the gallery’s fall programming with this show. “Through exhibitions like this, the gallery pays tribute to these women artists who came before, who laid the groundwork for opportunities for women in the arts today,” she says.

: Kathleen Blackshear, Abstraction, mixed media, 6 x 7.

: Lucie Locke, Portrait, oil, 12 x 11.

: Kathleen Nobles Douglass, Still Life, oil, 24 x 18.

The exhibition includes approximately 60 works by 20 early female Texas artists, who were primarily active from the 1920s through the 1950s: Kathleen Blackshear, Mary Bonner, Mary Nell Brooks, Emma Richardson Cherry, Marie Delleney, Kathleen Nobles Douglass, Constance Forsyth, Lucille Jeffries, Anna Keener, Lucie Locke, Barbara Maples, Florence McClung, Flora Blanc Reeder, Emily Rutland, Ethel Spears, Coreen Mary Spellman, Stella Sullivan, Janet Turner, and Elizabeth Walmsley. “These are artists whose works have rarely been seen, let alone come to market, so this is a great opportunity to show and sell some incredible historic Texas art,” Foltz says.

The works on view range from oil paintings to watercolors to prints, and they cover a wide spectrum of subjects and styles. There are traditional still lifes, portraits, and landscapes as well as forays into modernism through abstraction, surrealism, cubism, and expressionism. “The exhibit really shows the evolution of some of these painters, guiding viewers on a visual journey from regionalism to modernism,” Foltz says.

: Ethel Spears, La Fonda Hotel, Santa Fe, watercolor, 20 x 13.

: Kathleen Blackshear, Large Giraffe, mixed media, 22 x 29.

: Coreen Mary Spellman, Mesas, watercolor, 18 x 23.

Foltz plans to devote more of the gallery’s upcoming programming to celebrating the stories of pioneering female Texas artists, further developing the gallery’s existing body of work in the field of important Texas art. “For so long, Texas art history has focused almost exclusively on male artists like the Dallas Nine or the early bluebonnet painters—but working alongside them were a number of fantastic female artists that weren’t taken as seriously and have been overlooked for years,” Foltz says. “In revisiting and telling their stories, these artists will not be forgotten, and we are given an opportunity to learn from their lives and experiences, to understand what they overcame, in order to better appreciate where we are and provide guidance on how we should move forward.”

The show runs through October 26. A talk and book signing with Ron Tyler takes place on Saturday, October 5, from 2 to 5 p.m. —Lindsay Mitchell

contact information
713.521.7500
www.foltzgallery.com