The Lone Star Legacy in Contemporary Texas Art Exhibition

This summer William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art of Houston teams up with the prestigious Haley Memorial Library & History Center to host an outstanding exhibition featuring many of the state?s best contemporary artists at the Haley Memorial Library in Midland, Texas. The 17 artists represented in the Haley show constitute the gallery?s Contemporary Texas Regionalist group. These artists hale from all over the state, many acknowledged as rising stars on the Texas scene and all recognized among the foremost painters working within the state today. The Contemporary Texas Regionalists include: Randy Bacon (Albany), Mary Baxter (Marfa), David Caton (Utopia), Margie Crisp (Elgin), Keith Davis (Austin), Fidencio Duran (Austin), Pat Gabriel (Fort Worth), Billy Hassell (Fort Worth), Lee Jamison (Huntsville), Robb Kendrick (Austin), Laura Lewis (Mason), Robert McCoy (San Antonio), William Montgomery (Elgin), Noe Perez (Corpus Christi), Jeri Salter (Round Rock), Debbie Stevens (Cypress), and William Young (Palestine). While working in a wide range of styles and variety of medium, each artist conveys traditional Texas themes, with a painterly, regional ethos in their output. This entire group of Texas artists is producing artwork capturing the attention of major collectors, and finding their way into the permanent collections of Texas museums. The exhibition provides a special tribute to the work of Mason (formerly Lubbock) artist Laura Lynn Lewis who has completed the majestic mural depicting the discovery and development of oil in the Permian Basin recently installed on the new Chevron facility in Midland. Lewis?s work focuses in scenes of West Texas and the High Plains, and her works are included in important private and public collections. Of note, all the artists are featured in the recent publication by Texas A&M University Press entitled Of Texas Rivers & Texas Art. Co-authored and curated by Andrew Sansom, a leading Texas conservationist with the Meadows Center for Art & Environment, and William E. Reaves, an influential Texas art collector and historian, the book showcases a compilation of some of the finest contemporary river art detailing the gorgeous traits of Texas landscapes. Through this work, the co-curators provide not only the backgrounds and historical development of riverine themes in Texas art, they also reiterate the vital importance of water conservation and the role that rivers play as the lifeblood of our land. Coinciding with the new publication, a touring museum exhibition is ongoing throughout 2017, starting at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts in early spring, and traveling to Austin?s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in June, followed by the Witte Museum in San Antonio in the fall. There will be a book signing for Of Texas Rivers & Texas Art in conjunction with the opening reception at the Haley on Thursday, May 18th.