April 11, 2009—June 14, 2009

A still life is a work of art depicting inanimate, usually commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made in an artificial setting.   Still lifes allow the artist more flexibility in the layout of design aspects within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or portraiture.  In Texas, artists have been painting still lifes since the 1830s.  “Lone Star Still Lifes” will examine the establishment of still life painting in the 1860s and 1870s with European immigrant artists and transplants such as Robert J. Onderdonk through the Regionalist painters of the 1930s, such as Alexandre Hogue and Florence McClung.  Work by artists from the Texas Panhandle such as H. D. Bugbee, Olive Vandruff, Emilio Caballero, and Isabel Robinson, will be included.  The exhibition will include works from the Museum’s collection as well as those borrowed from public and private collections.