S H A D O WS
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BILLY HASSELL
BILLY HASSELL
SHAD O WS
This publication accompanies the exhibition SHADOWS curated by: William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road Houston, Texas 77098 November 10–December 22, 2018 All images reproduced in this catalogue are copyright by the artist unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission of the artist. Photographs by: David Wharton and Jordan Stricker Lithographs printed by: Peter Webb, Lucky Strike Press Copyright @ 2018 Billy Hassell, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art Studio Assistance: Jana Renee and Nik Papa
Designed by William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art Printing and binding: Masterpiece Litho, Inc., USA
Front cover: Carolina Parakeet, Ghost of Caddo Lake, 2018 Title Page: Monarchs Migrating, 2018, installation view Contents Page: The Canary, 2018, installation view
CONTENTS Artist’s Statement
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Essay
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Works
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Checklist
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Artist Biographical Information
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Installation: Chief, 2015, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches (left); Navajo, 2018, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches (right); IvoryBilled Woodpecker, Ghost of Caddo Lake, 2018, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches (back left); Whooping Cranes Migrating North, Dismal River, Nebraska, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches (back right).
A Word From the Artist on the Exhibition SHADOWS BILLY HASSELL My work has always had an ecological consciousness to it and has almost always featured birds as primary subjects. When asked once “Why birds?” I responded, “The presence (or absence) of birds, like the canary in the coal mine, is an indicator of a healthy environment.” My sentiments have become more acute in our current political world. Ignoring or denying that such things as climate change exist in order to rationalize environmental negligence has placed our natural resources under siege which has, in turn, inspired in me a deeper motivation to address these issues in a more direct way. At the same time I want my work to be provocative and visually engaging. The show features new oil paintings and a group of new lithographs. Some of the new paintings feature extinct birds of Texas along with several species that are endangered or are on the brink of extinction. Others have broader cultural reference. In choosing the title, SHADOWS, for the exhibition I wanted to suggest all of the various meanings of the word, both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun, I want to suggest silhouettes, shapes, profiles as well as the proximity to sadness and gloom; as a verb, to suggest a shadow cast and also to follow and observe.
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Installation: Whooping Cranes Flying North, Dismal River, Nebraska, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches (left); The Canary, 2018, painted wood sculpture, 24 x 42 x 6.5 inches (bottom center); Monarchs Migrating, 2018, reproduction on archival dibond, sizes vary (upper center); Canary II, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches (right).
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Installation: Monarch Butterflies Over the Rio Grande, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches (front right); With the Wind, 1999, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches (back left).
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Wing and Shadow: Paintings as Poetic Texts ROBIN DAVIDSON A painting is a visual text. Unlike poems, paintings are, on the surface, silent. They rely on color, line, pattern, figuration to make meaning. Like poems, however, paintings also hold a latent text, a subterranean voice that emerges in the interweaving of light and shadow in relation to image. Color and form, as Kandinsky writes in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, have powerful unconscious associations with our own personal experience of the world. It is in this subterranean realm that Billy Hassell’s paintings enact their metaphorical narratives and come vividly alive for the viewer. The genesis of Hassell’s interest in the power of metaphor inherent in the visual involves both representational and abstract approaches to color and form. In an interview he reveals that one of his earliest formative art experiences as a child was sitting in church on Sunday mornings and observing the stained glass windows—their intensity of color, their detailed precision of image, the minute pattern of plants, flowers, animals. Though the windows’ iconography, its symbolism, eluded him at the time, the windows’ vibrant colors and the repetition of patterns in their design captivated him and left an indelible mark on his future understanding of pattern and figuration. He also cites Arshile Gorky’s painting “The Calendars” and Willem de Kooning’s “Excavation” as informing his understanding of abstract painting: “I understood, in an instant it seemed, that painting and drawing could exist for their own sake and not necessarily exist merely to describe and define recognizable and representational subject matter. Colors, lines and forms could exist on their own, interacting as powerfully and as psychologically as in any representational work of art.” The current exhibit, SHADOWS, is underpinned by Hassell’s strong commitment to the natural landscape and its varieties of animal and plant life. He works from direct observation of nature, and embraces a sense of regional identity informed by the larger context of regional history and local culture. His work captures a sense of particular
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place whether that is Texas, the Northeast United States, or Canada where he has spent years exploring the landscape by canoe—sketching and watercoloring as he retraced the footsteps of the Canadian regionalist painters, known as the Group of Seven, whose work he admires for its deft integration of abstraction and realism. As he notes in his artist statement, his work has long emerged out of an ecological consciousness and speaks on behalf of a healthy environment. Birds are often his primary subjects, he says, because their “presence (or absence)…like the canary in the coal mine,” is a powerful indicator of the robustness of any ecosystem. The paintings and lithographs included here refer specifically to species survival and offer the viewer an array of birds, now extinct or at risk of extinction. Over the course of his career, Hassell has worked in partnership with Audubon Texas and the Nature Conservancy of Texas on conservation issues related to endangered species and their habitats. He notes the poignancy of considering the future absence of those animals he’s come to know and revere through deliberated observation, endangered birds in particular. A number of the new oil paintings and lithographs comprising SHADOWS feature the ironic juxtaposition of a stylized natural image, such as a bird, rendered in vibrant color in the painting’s foreground and resting among haunting shadows of foliage or animals. Like other of Hassell’s paintings, these pieces use precisely patterned decorative backgrounds, similar to wallpaper patterns designed by Pre-Raphaelite poet William Morris who sought to bring natural forms, their beauty, into the domestic sphere. However, Hassell’s intricate patterns here reverse Morris’s strategy by privileging the external landscape, as if to familiarize it. His images depict the natural habitat, not as domesticated, but as one whose wilderness is to be revered, rather than subject to the devastating impact of human intervention. In “Carolina Parakeet,” we see the parrot rendered in bold greens
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and blues, its gold and rust-colored face tilted downward against a background of cypress trees hung with Spanish moss reflected in the waters below. The Carolina Parakeet was native to the American East, Midwest, and the wetlands of the Southeast, and was one of only two parrots native to the United States. The last known of these birds died in captivity in 1918, and by 1939 the species was declared extinct. A second painting, “Ghost of the Great Plains, Passenger Pigeon,” similarly presents to the viewer a beautifully stylized passenger pigeon in flight against images of bison cast in shadow and grazing in faded grasslands. The passenger pigeon, now extinct, was once the most abundant bird in North America, numbering between three and five billion, and migrating in enormous flocks. Its decline began in the nineteenth century, and the last passenger pigeon died in 1914. Natural scientists attribute these losses to anthropogenic extinction—the death of a species caused by human degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as coral reefs, rainforests, and other such environments. In “Ghost of Caddo Lake,” we see yet another ghost—the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, whose presence in the forested swamps and lakes at the border between Texas and Louisiana and along the southern coast has been critically endangered for more than 70 years, and is now diminished to near extinction. What distinguishes this painting from the previous two is that shadows of cypress are juxtaposed against light and color. The roses, lavenders, and blues of sunset suggest a disappearance, but also the possibility that this particular species may still linger in vastly reduced numbers in these waters. If so, the painter may be asking what conservation efforts might protect lone survivors and foster repopulation. The inclusion of “Canary II” in the exhibit alludes to a kinship between birds and artists. Like “the canary in the coal mine,” artists are deeply sensitive to their environments. This sensitivity allows them to read cultural and sociopolitical contexts, the signs hidden
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below the manifest social text that may go unnoticed or ignored by other segments of human society. As a “sentinel species,” the artist—though initially and primarily concerned with matters of aesthetics and craft—is also responsible for what Kandinsky calls “educating the public in empathy.” What may begin in a personal pursuit of one’s art form may develop into the urgency of sociopolitical action. The collection of work comprising SHADOWS is the complex meeting of craft and social activism on behalf of species survival. Billy Hassell has consistently used the titles of his exhibits and individual artworks as an opportunity to connect craft with latent content of a psychological or sociopolitical nature. His use of litotes, the poetic device of understatement, for this purpose is especially effective. Consider the exhibit title, SHADOWS. As he notes, the word shadows engages multiple possibilities in both syntax and meaning. The word itself holds a rich “understory.” Like the understory, or layer of vegetation hidden from light beneath a forest’s canopy, the exhibit title and its component artworks engage in latent stories moving beneath the manifest ones—synesthetic narratives where color, light, shadow resonate with a range of semantic associations. The luminous bird images, their bold colors—literally extinct—now rise up out of shadows. Metaphorically, they transcend their fate, are rescued from oblivion by the artist’s eye and hand. Cultural artifacts are shaped by their historical moment. They may express shared cultural values or they may critique those values, serving at times as prophecy of a culture’s future. In the case of Hassell’s SHADOWS, the artifacts are a visceral response to the threat of climate change and all ways in which human behavior diminishes our environment. Hassell’s surface and subterranean landscapes speak both directly and indirectly through metaphor to human error, and the environmental negligence certain to impact all of Earth’s species as global warming escalates. May we attend well to these beautifully crafted warnings that our planet too may rise out of shadow.
-Robin Davidson is author of two poem chapbooks, Kneeling in the Dojo and City that Ripens on the Tree of the World, and a full collection, Luminous Other, recipient of the Ashland Poetry Press’s 2012 Richard Snyder Memorial Publication Prize. She is cotranslator with Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska of The New Century: Poems from the Polish of Ewa Lipska (Northwestern UP), and is completing a second volume of translations of Lipska’s recent Droga pani Schubert (Dear Ms. Schubert) poems. She has received, among other awards, a Fulbright professorship at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland and a National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowship. Davidson served as the 2015-2017 Poet Laureate for the City of Houston under the leadership of Mayors Annise Parker and Sylvester Turner, and was a finalist for Texas State Poet Laureate in 2017. She is a member of the artist-run, cooperative literary press Calypso Editions, and teaches literature and creative writing as professor of English for the University of Houston-Downtown.
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WORKS
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WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION All works by Billy Hassell 1. Carolina Parakeet, Ghost of Caddo Lake, 2018, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches 2. Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Ghost of Caddo Lake, 2018, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches 3. Passenger Pigeon, Ghost of the Great Plains, 2018, oil on canvas,40 x 36 inches 4. Monarch Butterflies Over the Rio Grande, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches 5. Canary II, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches 6. Shadow Over the Rio Grande, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches 7. Whooping Cranes Flying North, Dismal River, Nebraska, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches 8. Navajo, 2018, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches 9. Chief, 2015, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches 10. Meadow, 2018, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches 11. Roadrunner with Butterflies and Grasshopper, 2018, oil on canvas, 50 x 48 inches 12. Wildflowers in Kerr County, 2002, oil on panel, 9 x 9 inches 13. Life in the Bindweed, 2017, watercolor, 7 x 24 inches 14. Egrets Nesting, 2008, inkwash on paper, 22 x 22 inches 15. Weasel, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 16. Skunk, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 17. Bison, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 18. Grasshopper, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 19. Black-Footed Ferret, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 20. Jackrabbit, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 21. Mockingbird, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 22. Bobcat, 2018, hand colored lithograph / black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 23. Raven, 2017, black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 24. Road Runner, 2017, black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 25. Stink Beetle, 2017, black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 26. Swallow, 2017, black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 27. Coyote, 2017, black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 28. Rooster, 2017, black and white lithograph, 8.5 x 24 inches 29. Powderhorn Ranch, from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation Series, 2016, color lithograph, 24 x 22 inches 30. Blue Water Reef, from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation Series, 2016, color lithograph, 24 x 22 inches 31. Llano River, Texas Hill Country, from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation Series, 2017, color lithograph, 24 x 22 inches 32. Wild Turkey, East Texas, from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation Series, 2018, color lithograph, 24 x 22 inches 33. Pronghorn, West Texas, from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation Series, 2018, color lithograph, 24 x 22 inches
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BILLY HASSELL (American, b. 1956) Fort Worth-based fine artist Billy Hassell, who was recently referred to as “Mother Nature’s Stylist” by The New York Times, has been showing his artwork since the 1980s in galleries across the country. His bold colors and patterns inspired by nature have captured the imagination of collectors throughout the nation. Few artists use color as effectively as Hassell, and his graphically illustrative style contributes to his work’s emotional punch. Elite museums in Texas such as the Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern in Fort Worth, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Menil Collection in Houston, among others, have acquired Hassell’s oil paintings for their permanent collections. His works also hang in many other public art collections including a U.S. Embassy, the University of Texas, the offices of HBO, and the George W. Bush Presidential Center. National art magazines such as Art News, Southwest Art, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal have featured Hassell’s paintings as well as many regional publications including the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, D magazine, and 360 West. His artwork has also been displayed on several television shows. Because of his dedication to conservation, Hassell has donated art throughout his career to conservation organizations. The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservation, and Audubon have used his artwork to raise money for environmental causes and celebrate the beauty of nature. A unique passion is printmaking—in particular, lithographs. Hassell has collaborated with a number of master printers to produce a sizeable number of color lithographs. This increasingly rare and labor-intensive form of printmaking has been, and continues to be, sought after by collectors internationally. His talents are not limited to the canvas. Hassell has produced and designed large-scale stainedglass murals, one of which is a large floor medallion for the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport; another, a 50 foot mural at a fire station in Fort Worth. He has also worked on various public art projects. Academia has been an ongoing interest throughout his life. Hassell earned his BFA from Notre Dame, followed by his MFA from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Upon completion of his graduate degree, Notre Dame invited him back as a professor to teach etching and watercolor. He has also taught a variety of art classes—painting, drawing, printmaking, and studio practices—at universities including Davidson College in North Carolina. Hassell is regularly invited to people’s ranches and other landscapes across the country, as well as out of the country, to capture the unique beauty of private places for their owners. Most recently, he completed a mural at a ranch in the Texas Hill Country that was featured in the Wall Street Journal. Today, Hassell’s work continues to show the natural world charged with life, energy, and movement. On canvases that loom larger than life, both in size and vibrancy of subject, his distinctive use of color and stylized natural elements and animals reveal why he has become such a highly-respected painter. 46
SELECTED BIOGRAPHICAL AND CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
2010 Breath, Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, February
1956 Born in Dallas, Texas
2009 Tangle, William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, December
1978 Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
2009 Migration, 15 Year Survey, Ellen Noel Museum of Art, Odessa, Texas, September
1982 Master of Fine Arts, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
2008 Parchman Stremmel Galleries, San Antonio, Texas, November
Resides in Fort Worth, Texas
2008 LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, Louisiana, August
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008 Migration, 15 Year Survey, Texas A&M International University, Laredo, Texas, August
2018 Shadows, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas, November–December
2008 Journal, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, January
2018 Vestiges, Dowd Gallery, Cortland College, Cortland, New York, October–December
2008 Field Notes, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, Texas, May
2018 Trace, Survey Exhibition, Michelson Museum of Art, Marshall, Texas, February–April
2007 Migration, 15 Year Survey, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas, September
2017 Trace, Survey Exhibition, Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for Art, Lubbock, Texas, October 2006 LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 2016 Voices and Visions, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, May-June 2005 Parchman Stremmel Galleries, San Antonio, Texas, December 2015 Compass, William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, November–January 2, 2016 2005 McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, Texas, April 2014 Illumination, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, April 2005 Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, September 2014 Ephemera: Winged Creatures of Texas, Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), Fort Worth, Texas, September–November
2005 Bryant Gallery, Kingsville, Texas, April 2004 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, April
2013 Illuminating Nature, Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas December–March 2014
2003 William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, December
2012 Wild Things (with David Everett), Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas, September–January 2013 2003 Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, September 2012 Watershed, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, 2003 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, Dallas, Texas, April–May April 2012 Color Lithographs, LeMieux Galleries, New 2002 D Berman Gallery, Austin, Texas, May Orleans, Louisiana, March–May 2010 Memento, Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art, Shawnee, Oklahoma, December
2002 Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, Texas, September
2010 Distances, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, May
2002 Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, December
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1987 DW Gallery, Dallas, Texas, September
2001 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, May
1987 Adair Margo Gallery, El Paso, Texas, December
2000 William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, December
1986 DW Gallery, Dallas, Texas, January
2000 Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Missouri, March
1986 Caroline Lee Gallery, San Antonio, Texas, May
1999 Parchman Stremmel Galleries, San Antonio, Texas, July
1985 Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas, May
1999 Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, December
1984 McIntosh/Drysdale Gallery, Houston, Texas, July
1998 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, September
1983 The Texas Club, Houston, Texas, October
1998 MB Modern, New York, New York, March
1983 McMurtrey Gallery, Houston, Texas, February
1998 Innsbrook Resort and Convention Center, Wright City, Missouri, July 1997 William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, April
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1996 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, November
2018 In/Sight, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, September–October
1996 Martin-Rathburn Gallery, San Antonio, Texas, July
2018 The Texas Aesthetic, Annual Exhibition, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas, May–June
1995 Adair Margo Gallery, El Paso, Texas, November
2018 Texas Aviary, William Reaves|Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas, February–March
1994 William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, September
2017 Of Texas Rivers and Texas Art, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, Texas; Texas Capitol Ground Floor Rotunda, Austin, Texas; Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas; Mayborn Museum, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, February 2017–March 2018
1993 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, October 1992 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, May
2017 The Texas Aesthetic, Annual Exhibition, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas, May–June
1991 Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina, February 1990 Scott Alan Gallery, New York, New York, April 1989 Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, October
2016 Lone Star Legacies in Contemporary Texas Art, Haley Memorial Library & History Center, Midland, Texas, December
2016 Contemporary Texas Regionalism: A Holiday 1989 Davidson College Art Gallery, Davidson, North Show, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Carolina, February Houston, Texas, December 1988 Scott Alan Gallery, New York, New York, April 1987 Joseph Gross Gallery, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, September
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2016 The Texas Aesthetic, Annual Exhibition, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, Texas, May–June
2015 Texas Visions: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Nave Museum, Victoria, Texas, June 2015 In Good Company, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, April
2004 30th Anniversary Exhibition, William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, October 2003 For the Birds, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas, April–May
2015 William Havu Gallery, Denver, Colorado, August
2003 Art in the Metroplex, Juror: Diane Karp, Moudy Gallery, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, September
2015 Ties that Bind: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Turner House, Dallas, Texas, February 2015 Painting in the Texas Tradition: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Spring, Texas, February–April 2014 Second Nature (with David Everett), Davis Gallery, Austin, Texas, April 2014 Texas Critters, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, Texas, September–October 2010 Collections, Cultures & Collaborations, Curator: Tracee Robertson, Art Gallery, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, January
2002 Landscapes, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Missouri, July 2002 42nd Annual Invitational Exhibition, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, Texas, April 2001 The American Landscape Today, Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, May 2001 Made in Texas, Art Center of Waco, Waco, Texas, September 2001 Invitational Group Exhibition, D Berman Gallery, Austin, Texas, November–December
2010 Advancing Tradition: 25 Years of Printmaking at Flatbed Press, Austin Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, December 2010 25 Years of Adair Margo Gallery, Satoa Gallery, El Paso, Texas, December
2001 Fresh Voices, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, June–July 2001 Five Star Texans, Adair Margo Gallery, El Paso, Texas, September
2009 Recess, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas, December
2001 Faculty Biennial Exhibition, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, October– November
2008 Public Art in Fort Worth, Billy Hassell, Benito Huerta, and Anitra Blayton, Curator: Janet Tyson, Forth Worth Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas, April
2000 Summer Show, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, June
2008 Art, Science and the World Around Us, Curator: Margie Crisp, Art Center of Waco, Waco, Texas, October
1999 Inaugural Exhibition, G.O.C.A.I.A. Gallery, Tucson, Arizona, October 1998 The Hurlbutt Bestiary, Hurlbutt Gallery, Greenwich, Connecticut, April–May
2007 Margarita Cabrera and Billy Hassell, The Gallery, University of Texas at Arlington, Texas, January 2006 Blurring Boundaries, Ellen Noel Art Museum, Odessa, Texas, September 2006 Artists for the New Century, Bennington Center for the Arts, Bennington, Vermont, August
1998 Inaugural Exhibition: New Works by Contemporary Artists, Gerald Peters Galleries, Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 1998 Texas Roots, Center for the Visual Arts, Denton, Texas, September 1997 New Horizons 1997, Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, August
2004 Fall Group Exhibition, Parchman Stremmel Galleries, San Antonio, November
1996 Shared Passions, MB Modern, New York, New York, September
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1996 Sacred Matter, MB Modern, New York, New York, July
1992 Printmaking in Texas: The 1980’s, Laguna Gloria Museum, Austin, Texas, June
1996 Rediscovering the Landscape of the Americas, Curators: Alan Gussow and Gayle Maxon-Edgerton, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, traveling exhibit, July–January 1997
1992 On Death y Los Dios De Los Muertos, Bridge Center for Contemporary Art, El Paso, Texas, November 1992 Flatbed: The First Two Years, Tarrytown Gallery, Austin, Texas, February
1996 MB Modern Artists, Babcock Galleries, New York, New York, May
1992 Contemporary Prints: The Peregrine Press Archives, Curators: Alan Govenar and Jo Ann Hart, traveling exhibit, September 1992–August 1995
1995 Texas Myths and Realities, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, October 1995 Opening the Border: Landscapes of Texas and Mexico, The Parc Royale, Houston, Texas, January–March
1992 100 Anniversary Exhibition: Masterworks from Fort Worth Collections, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, April
1995 Images of Nature III, Martin-Rathburn Gallery, 1991 Ship Shape, Galveston, Texas, September San Antonio, Texas, March–April 1995 Glenn Lane: Remembering, Trammell Crow Center, Dallas, Texas, April
1991 Time is Relative, Beverly Gordon Gallery, Dallas, Texas, December
1994 Collector’s Choice: Living with Art, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas, June
1991 Paintings by Joanne Brigham, Billy Hassell, Jeff Delude, Hickory Street Annex Gallery, Dallas, Texas, April
1994 Anonymous, West End Gallery, Houston, Texas, March
1991 Group Exhibition, Peregrine Gallery, Dallas, Texas, December
1994 All Creatures Great and Small, Curator: Jo Ann Hart, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, June–July
1991 Chords and Discords, Hudson River Museum, Westchester, New York, July
1993 Texas Select Invitational Exhibition, Guest Curator: Richard M. Ash III, Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center, Wichita Falls, Texas, October
1990 Primal Impulse: Billy Hassell and David Winston, Adair Margo Gallery, El Paso, Texas, November
1993 Texas Art Celebration ‘93, Juror: David Ross, Cullen Center, Houston, Texas, February
1990 Forty Texas Printmakers, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, November
1993 Talleres en Fronteras: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art from South Texas and Baja California, Weil Gallery, Corpus Christi State University, Corpus Christi, Texas, traveling exhibit, April
1989 The Nature of The Beast, Hudson River Museum, Westchester, New York, April 1989 Small Works, Edith Baker Gallery, Dallas, Texas, December
1993 Art and the Animals, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, Texas, February
1989 Print Makers, Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, February
1993 Animal Attraction, University of Dallas Art Gallery, University of Dallas, Dallas, Texas, April
1989 Fish Tales, William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, July
1992 The Big Show, Juror: Annegreth Nill, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Texas, September 1992 Second Nature, Adair Margo Gallery, El Paso, Texas, September
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1989 Feather, Fur & Fin, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas, March 1989 Earth Day 1990, William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, April
1989 Counter Signals, Curator: Kevin Curry, Hickory Street Annex, Dallas, Texas, August 1989 Artists of Oak Cliff, Modern Dallas Art, Dallas, Texas, September 1989 A Family of Artists, 500X Gallery, Dallas, Texas, December
1985 East End Show, Lawndale Annex, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, September 1985 Austin Annual, Mexi-Arte, Arts Warehouse, Austin, Texas, September 1984 Texas Only, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas, September
1989 31st Annual Invitational Exhibition, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, Texas, December 1988 Zoomorphism: Animals in Art, Trammel Crowe Center, Dallas, Texas, September 1988 American Artists’ Beastiary: Armadillo to Zebra, Amarillo Art Center, Amarillo, Texas, March
1984 Houston Profile, Art League of Houston, Houston, Texas, November 1984 Four Texas Artists, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas, August 1984 Competition ’84, Juror: Peter Marzio, 2 Houston Center, Houston, Texas, April
1987 The Fictional Figure, Caroline Lee Gallery, Houston, Texas, December 1987 Mythmakers, William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, October 1987 Going to the Dogs, Janus Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October
1984 Artist Call, Lawndale Annex, Houston, Texas, February 1984 19th Annual Juried Art Award Exhibition, Juror: Jane Livingston, Jewish Community Center, Houston, Texas, March 1983 Synergy ’83, Glassell School of Art, Houston, Texas
1986 Inaugural Exhibition, Scott Alan Gallery, New York, New York, May
1983 Maps: A Mail Art Show, Diverse Works, Inc., Houston, Texas, December
1986 Faculty Exhibition, Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, November
1982 Works on Paper, Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts, January
1986 Billy Hassell/Ken Saville, Janus Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October
1982 Thesis Exhibition, Herter Gallery, University of Massachusetts, February
1985 The Horses’ Mouth, DW Gallery, Dallas, Texas, August
1982 Noir Blanc and The Chromatics, Leverett Craftsman and Artists, Leverett, Massachusetts, April
1985 Texas Visions, Transco Tower, Houston, Texas, December 1985 Texas: A State of The Arts, The Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, March
1982 Group Show, Boston State House, Boston, Massachusetts, May
1985 Southwest ’85, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, March
1982 Eleventh Annual Competitive Art Exhibition, Ely Art Gallery, Westfield, Massachusetts, February
1985 Self-Image, Midtown Art Center, Houston, Texas, April
1982 Anything Goes, Zone Gallery, Springfield, Massachusetts, January
1985 Propaganda, Midtown Art Center, Houston, Texas, September
1981 Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Exhibition, Foothills Art Center, Golden, Colorado, July
1985 Houston Artists in Los Angeles, Los Angeles Gallery for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California, February
1981 Group Show, Pratt Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts, December
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SELECTED PUBLIC ART COMMISSIONS
1981 Four Painters, Agusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, May 1981 Billy Hassell/Stanton Sears, Danco Art Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts, September 1980 Juried Exhibition, Edison Community College, Fort Meyers, Florida, April 1980 Group Show, Kaji Aso Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, February
2015–2018 Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, Dallas, Texas; 5 limited edition color lithographs (editions of 30 each), collaboration with Master Printer Peter Webb, Lucky Strike Press, Austin, Texas 2007–08 Fire Station #34, Sendera Ranch, Fort Worth, Texas, design/implementation of exterior mosaic (3 x 50 feet) 2002–07 Audubon Society of Texas, Austin, Texas, five limited-edition color lithographs (editions of 30 each)
1980 Drawing Exhibition, Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, September 1980 Boston Community Art Exhibition, Boston City Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, May 1980 Alumni/Faculty Exhibition, Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, October
2002–05 Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Terminal D, DFW, Texas, design for mosaic floor medallion, Early Morning Flight, 2005 (20 feet in diameter) 2002 University of Texas at Austin, A.C.E.S. Building, Austin, Texas, oil on canvas (72 x 96 inches)
SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS
1995 VHA, Inc., Dallas, Texas, two oils on canvas (each 50 x 50 inches)
2002 Best of Show, 42nd Annual Invitational Exhibition, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, Texas
1994 Mesa Restaurant, Houston, Texas, mural (15 x 50 feet), ironwork (4 x 44 feet), and painted wood wall relief (4 x 7 feet)
1989 Honorable Mention, 31st Annual Invitational Exhibition, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, Texas, December
1994 8.0 Club, Houston, Texas, mural (8 x 25 feet)
1992 Texas Nature Conservancy, San Antonio, 1985 Anne Giles Kimbrough Award, Dallas Museum Texas, color intaglio edition printed at Flatbed of Art, Dallas, Texas Press in Austin, Texas 1984 Cover of the 1984 Houston Arts Calendar & Directory, Houston, Texas
1992 Home Box Office (HBO), Dallas, Texas, oil on canvas (72 x 60 inches)
1984 Best of Series, Emerging Artists, 1984; Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas
1991–92 Cistercian Abbey, Irving, Texas, Tabernacle door (bronze)
1984 Cash Award, Competition ’84, Juror: Peter Marzio, Assistance League, Houston, Texas
1991 Methodist Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, oil on canvas (72 x 60 inches)
1984 Cash Award, 19th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror: Jane Livingston, Jewish Community Center, Houston, Texas
1983 Foreman and Dyess, Interfirst Plaza, Houston, Texas, mural (6 x 18 feet) 1983 Butler & Binyon, Allied Bank Building, Houston, Texas, mural (5 x 25 feet)
1983 Synergy ’84, Arts Symposium of Houston, Houston, Texas
1982 University of Massachusetts, Fine Arts 1981 Best in Show Cash Award, New England Artist Center Auditorium, Art for a Public Space, Festival & Showcase, NEAF Gallery, Northampton, Amherst, Massachusetts, two murals (4 x 25 feet) Massachusetts
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1981 New England Artist Festival, Northampton, Massachusetts, poster
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas Cistercian Abbey, Irving, Texas Crescent Collection, Dallas, Texas Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas Ellen Noel Museum of Art, Odessa, Texas Frito-Lay, Inc., Department of Research and Development, Plano, Texas George W. Bush Presidential Center, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas Home Box Office (HBO), Dallas, Texas Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, Texas Menil Collection, Houston, Texas Methodist Medical Center, Dallas, Texas Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas University of Texas, Austin, Texas U. S. Consulate General, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico VHA, Inc., Dallas, Texas Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center, Wichita Falls, Texas
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Back cover: Canary II, 2018
William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road, Houston, TX 77098 reavesart.com