THE BOOT ST O R I E S F R O M T H E T E X A S H I L L C O U N T RY
A M A ST E R D E P I C TS T H E H I L L CO U N T RY O N C A N VA S
T H E P E AC H STA N D T H AT G R E W I N TO A G LO B A L B U S I N E SS
FO R E V E R C A R S AND THREE MEN T H AT LO V E T H E M
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THE BIG EASEL After building a nationwide reputation as one of America’s greatest Western artists, Robert Pummill is being recognized as the premier landscape artist capturing the magnificent beauty of the Texas Hill Country.
T H E LO N G R O A D F R O M O H I O TO T E X A S Robert Pummill is one of the artists whose work adorns the Boot Ranch clubhouse walls and who frequently paints the landscapes around him. Pummill lives and works in Kerrville, located 25 miles southwest of the city of Fredericksburg, and has been inspired by the Texas Hill Country throughout his career. “Shirley and I lived up by Dallas, and we’d looked all over Texas,” recalls Pummill, referring to his wife of 61 years. “I knew L.D. ‘Brink’ Brinkman—a successful businessman, cattle breeder, and art collector—and he said, ‘You need to go down to Kerrville.’ We did—bought a house there that same day. People here are special. The longer you live in Texas, the more it grows on you.” Pummill’s journey began in a small farming community in Ohio. “I learned to drive in a Model A. I walked behind mules as they plowed the fields. When I started painting Western heritage pieces, I knew the people I was painting—they were my people, the farmers I grew up with,” says Pummill. Back in 1946, when Pummill was just eleven years old, he convinced his parents to enroll him in the Art Instruction School, a correspondence course. “Most people remember that as the Draw Me! 58
mail-order course. They teach you the basics of illustration, all done by mail,” he recalls. Tuition was about $300 at the time. “My parents went through some hardships to let me do that.” After high school, Pummill spent nine years in the U.S. Air Force, including a two-year stint at Great Falls, Montana, where he was influenced by the same sweeping vistas that had inspired the great Western artist Charles Russell, a contemporary of Frederic Remington. Once he left the services, Pummill and his young wife lived in Mississippi, Florida, and California, eventually moving to Dallas, where he took a position as a contract illustrator for Vought Electronics. “I would do all those line drawings, breaking down the different areas of an aircraft, exploded views of the wiring for maintenance,” he notes. “But while I was doing that, I was also selling art at the Texas Art Gallery—the well-respected gallery run by Bill Burford in Dallas—and putting on a one-man show every year.” Eventually, his weekend painting turned lucrative. “I told my boss in 1976, ‘If this year is as good as last year, I’m going to leave,’” laughs Pummill. “On January 1st, I said, ‘See you!’ and I became a full-time professional artist.” Pummill always worked at something to make a living with his artwork. “At one point, I took an evening job at a sign shop for $2 an hour, painting names on the managers’ office doors in gold leaf at the local bank,” he recalls. “I also used to update the big maps at six amusement parks every year. Meanwhile, while I had originally focused on portraits, landscapes, and seascapes, I had started doing Western paintings in 1970, and that became my passion.”
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Robert Pummill with a recently completed painting.
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THIS PAGE: Pummill demonstrating how he steadies his hand while painting large pieces. Pummill’s sketches.
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G O W E S T E R N , YO U N G M A N Pummill’s work focused on the Old West, the pioneers and wagon trains, the fur traders and trappers, and the Native Americans who lived on the plains. In 1984, Pummill was inducted into the Cowboy Artists of America, and in 1995, he won a major award for one of his watercolors. “My forte was cattle drives, stagecoaches—that period of time in America’s history between 1840 and 1900,” Pummill explains. “There aren’t many of us left now. Most of the new Western artists paint contemporary subjects, and they’ll use a photo for inspiration. I came from the old illustrator group: I studied portraiture on the way up so if I need a figure, I just draw that figure. I know how people sit on horses, how their body attitude tells you what they’re thinking, what they’re doing. I just draw it. “It’s important to relate to the viewer,” adds Pummill. “Jim Reynolds, a well-known Western painter and good friend of mine, said, ‘You’ve got to make your painting beautiful.’ Now that’s generic, but I want people to stand in front of my paintings and get a good feeling. It shouldn’t be so hard-edged that people can’t relate to it. You’re telling a story.” Although recognized as one of the premier Western artists in the United States, Pummill had produced many stunning landscapes along the way and, about twelve years ago, he decided this would be a new direction for his work. “I enjoy landscapes. But I looked around and people weren’t painting them the way I would,” he says. “Doesn’t mean that my way is any better, but I thought they needed more atmosphere.” People often classify Pummill as an impressionist. “That’s true for the way I use light,” he says. “But I’d classify myself as an impressionist representationalist. In particular, what I try to do with the landscapes is concentrate as much on the atmosphere as I do on the subject.” Pummill estimates he has painted more than two thousand pieces in his lifetime, and currently produces around twenty new artworks each year. “I still paint most every day,” Pummill says. “I’m trying to capture the essence of the Texas Hill Country. None of these paintings are of real places, but I sometimes have people tell me, ‘That’s my ranch,’ and that just means I’ve accomplished what I’m trying to do—that they believe the story I’m telling them in my painting.”
L E T M E T E L L YO U A S TO RY
Pummill estimates he has painted over two thousand works in his lifetime.
Elizabeth Harris, co-owner of the InSight Gallery in Fredericksburg, has been a part of Pummill’s career for more than a decade. Hers is one of two galleries that represent Pummill’s works. Harris enjoys occasionally dropping by Pummill’s home studio to see what’s on the artist’s easel. “Bob’s been working on a painting based on the conflict that took place on the north wall of the Alamo. He researched the types of firearms, the uniforms, everything. I sometimes think he has as much fun doing the research and the prep work as working on the painting itself,” she says. “Bob is meticulous from concept through execution. He even stretches his own canvases.” Pummill acknowledged Harris’s assessment, saying, “I do sketches of each individual figure in the painting. Some are pretty rough, and sometimes I’ll sketch a figure three or four times until I get them how I want them. There are many figures in that painting, and they each have a story to tell.” With all his work, the artist leads the viewer through a painting and aims to make the trip enjoyable. “You’re the writer, you’re the director, and you have a storyboard that has a beginning, a middle, and an end,” Pummill explains. “Every time I finish a painting, I learn something about myself.” He adds, “It’s such a compliment when someone buys one of my paintings. I sold a painting last week before the paint was dry. That’s very humbling.” At 85 years old, Pummill is firing on all cylinders as he prepares for the next decade, declaring that he’s got a lot of paintings left to do. “People ask me what my favorite painting is and I always tell them the same thing—my next one,” he says. “And I mean that most sincerely.” ISSUE 2
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