Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
March 16 - April 7, 2018 Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
on view: opening reception:
March 16-April 7, 2018 saturday, March 17, 6:00-8:30pm saturday, March 17, 4:30-5:30pm artist talk & Book Signing: Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art Over the past six decades, artist Maurice Schmidt has created an impressive body of work, much of which focus on his interpretation of the South Texas region he calls home. In his first solo exhibition at Reaves |Foltz Fine Art, we are honored to present the work of this incredible artist to Houston and our gallery patrons. With his unique style, Schmidt creates a dynamic sense of motion and color in his works, many of which focus on his interpretation of the unique South Texas region he calls home. The exhibition includes paintings completed during his undergraduate years at the University of Texas, Austin, and pieces completed as recently as 2013. Schmidt pulls from excerpts in his book A Life in Art to give insight into the passion and meaning behind each piece, with wall labels guiding the viewer through the narratives. Family narratives and elements of his faith bleed through the bright colors and expressive strokes, evoking a deep love of the places and people that shaped him. Born in 1936, artist Maurice Schmidt grew up in New Braunfels, Texas. He earned his BFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1958, followed by his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI in 1958. After graduation, Schmidt lived in central Texas and was a member of the San Antonio art community from 1958 to 1963, during which time he lectured at Our Lady of the Lake University. In 1965, Schmidt began his teaching career in the Art Department at Texas A&M University, Kingsville, where he taught for over forty years, retiring in 2006 as Professor Emeritus in Art. Additionally, Schmidt served as an art critic for the Corpus Christi Caller Times from 1974 to 1989. Today, Schmidt continues to reside in Kingsville, TX. His works can be found in the permanent collection of: Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX; McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX; Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX; and Texas A&M University Kingsville Art Collection, Kingsville, TX. Of note, Schmidt has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Conner Museum, Texas A&M University—Kingsville, TX, which will be on view August 30-October 25, 2018.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt: A life in Art No.
Artist
Title of Work
Riboso, Mother and Child-Mexico
Date
Medium
Size (inches)
1957
lithograph
1
Maurice Schmidt
10.5 x 9.25
2
Maurice Schmidt Austin Bus 1957 oil on linen 40 x 30
3
Maurice Schmidt Grasshopper 1959 woodcut 11.5 x 16
4 Maurice Schmidt 5 Maurice Schmidt
Texaco Truck on Hot Day
1960
oil on canvas
42 x 44
People in an Auto
1960
oil on canvas
30 x 42
6
Maurice Schmidt
The Fruit Vendor
1961
colored woodcut
7.5 x 9
7
Maurice Schmidt
Cow and Calf
1965
drypoint etching on paper
9 x 12
8 9
Maurice Schmidt
Two on a Bench
1968
drypoint etching on paper
9 x 11.25
10
Maurice Schmidt Night Freight 1974 oil on linen 60 x 72
11
Maurice Schmidt Goat Boy 1976 oil on linen 35 x 43.5
12
Maurice Schmidt Dos Cabritos 1980 color etching 5 x 9
13
Maurice Schmidt
14
Maurice Schmidt Viejos in Park 1980 oil on linen 50 x 60
15
Maurice Schmidt Koffee Kup 1980 oil on linen 60 x 72
16
Maurice Schmidt Four Pigs 1981 oil on linen 20 x 24
17
Maurice Schmidt
18
Maurice Schmidt Melon Vendor 1986-90 oil on canvas 48 x 72
19
Maurice Schmidt Goat Hauling 1989 oil on linen 43 x 71
20
Maurice Schmidt Twin Tractors 1989 oil on linen 50 x 60
Maurice Schmidt Gulf Station 1970 oil on linen 48 x 60
Tree Trimmer (Autumn Palm)
Cleaning the Plow
1980
1981
oil on linen
oil on canvas
72 x 60
44 x 71
Maurice Schmidt: A life in Art No.
Artist
Title of Work
Date
Medium
Size (inches)
21
Maurice Schmidt Teshuva Turning 1997 oil on linen 72 x 60
22
Maurice Schmidt Perch and Pear 2004 oil on canvas 18 x 22
23
Maurice Schmidt
Horses by Moonlight, Brenham, TX
2007
oil on canvas
49 x 49
24
Maurice Schmidt
Between the Waters
2011
oil on canvas
60 x 48
25
Maurice Schmidt
Around the Red Checkered Table Cloth
2011
oil on linen
36 x 48
26
Maurice Schmidt
Cow, Calf and New Moon
2013
oil on canvas
50 x 60
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
Mother and child are swathed together in a cocoon formed by the woman’s riboso. This style of street garment that covers both the head and body of women can be seen in the art of all ages across almost all cultures. The riboso and woman are as ubiquitous as woman and child. The riboso can be wrapped in many ways around the body, allowed to flow casually over the shoulders and straight downward or drawn snugly across the chest from one side to the other. Its folds stretch in a dramatic diagonally woven design almost as intimidating as the body armor, the cuirass of ancient warriors. I saw this woman many times during my studies in Mexico. This lithograph is a composite of my memories of them. We see them in the old religious paintings of the Virgin Mary, the crying Mother in Giotto’s great Pieta. For some reason, Leonardo chose to paint Mona Lisa, supposedly a woman of education and means, in this humble and unadorned robe. The painting was with him until his death. Could this portrait carry Leonardo’s memory of his peasant mother from whom he was snatched away by his landowner father who was of minor aristocracy? As with many of the really poor, they have little more than the slow dignity of their movement and the majesty of their bearing. Bone structure protrudes through faces and limbs; eyes, especially of the children, are large and penetrating, expressive beyond their years. Everything about them is dramatic, like great sculpture. It is not that I mean to say that poverty has beauty. Perhaps when everything is reduced to the mere essence of survival, and everything frivolous even those small extras that can give life some comfort is taken away; what remains is the essential dignity of the image of God in the human being. The irreducible revealed in its perfection all by itself with nothing to interfere. It calls to mind Michelangelo’s judgment: “The statue is finished when all the extraneous stone is removed.”
1. Maurice Schmidt, Riboso, Mother and Child-Mexico, 1957, lithograph, 10.5 x 9.25 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
Austin Bus was done outside of class during my undergraduate years at the University of Texas, Austin. I had a studio class I particularly disliked so I took the afternoon off. Yet, whenever I cut an art class, I would nevertheless spend the time on art. So I took my sketchbook and got on a city bus. When I found an interesting stop, I planned to get off and do some drawings. However, this time I never got off. Nothing I saw interested me. Finally my bus returned to the very place where I boarded it. I got off and as I walked in front of the bus to cross the street, I looked up and into the front of the bus. Through the dark blue windshield, I saw the people moving. Their colors changed as they moved front to back, the indoor light catching details revealing a cheek, a hat, and the shadows hiding them too. It was like peering into a living kaleidoscope, full of people made of stained glass. Outside, where I stood, it was sunny: a different world, hot and real. This was the beginning of my fascination with the simultaneous experience of a cool indoor space from a hot outside space: an experience somewhat akin to looking into clear water and seeing fish and reflections of sunlight. I have been asked if there is significance to the black man. At the time, I attached no social message to this image, at least not consciously. But this was the mid-fifties and everywhere the race issues were discussed, like soft murmuring. It was in the back of everyone’s mind. As I look at this man now, walking nonchalantly in front of all the white people still on the bus, the thought occurred to me that at that time, the only way a black person could be at the front of a bus was to walk in front of it. This was the period of abstract expressionist art, shown in all the museums and taught in all the art schools. A narrative painting about everyday life, Austin Bus was a shocker in this abstract environment, both to my fellow students and teachers. Looking at the sight of that black figure in your face, at eye level, I thought I heard the murmurings again.
2. Maurice Schmidt, Austin Bus, 1957, oil on linen, 40 x 30 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
3. Maurice Schmidt, Grasshopper, 1959, woodcut, 11.5 x 16 inches. The large grasshoppers we see in the Texas summer are anatomically well thought out. Two or three inches long, their two powerful back legs catapult them rocketlike high and far in a fraction of time. Their wings spin like helicopters- their bodies and bulgy eyes make them a species of living helicopters. The soldierly design on their legs- like a series of v’s forming yellow-green sergeant insignias give them a fearsome dignity. Sitting still, their posture is exactly like airplanes about to take off! Method: Single Block Color Woodcut: Instead of cutting the block into one block for each color, the artist cuts away the areas for each color on different parts of the block. Inking several areas and cutting ad printing each area completes the work, but the block cannot be used after the colors are printed. (Do not use this method on your Mother’s dining table!) Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
These long, large gasoline carrying trucks are an intimidating presence on the highway, especially in the bright sunlight or rain. Their long, round trailers and large cabs barrel down the road like short trains weaving through traffic. In the rain they seem to de-materialize as I look at them bearing down towards me. Each patch of water on window and windshield holds a piece of them and all the stable forms of things seem to be melting down. It is a colorful, but distracting scene. All shapes and forms are on the move. There are no distinct lines that hold their form in the wetness. In a sense we are traveling under water like a fish. Drive carefully.
4. Maurice Schmidt, Texaco Truck on Hot Day, 1960, oil on canvas, 42 x 44 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
This painting continues to show my interest in the simultaneous experience of an indoor, enclosed space from the outside. It comes only a few years after Austin Bus, its precursor. The work belongs to my San Antonio years (1958 – 1963), which was a great period of exploration, growth, and discovery as well as many exhibits and a growing reputation as an artist. This was still the time of abstract, mostly non-figurative art. People in an Auto won an award in the annual Witte Museum Exhibition; at that time the most prestigious juried art exhibit in the San Antonio area. Many people have liked this work. A close friend, fellow artist and University of Texas art graduate, Bill Bristow admired it the moment he saw it and he advised me to enter it in the Witte Museum exhibit. I’m glad I took his advice. He admired the way I had somehow combined abstract and figurative elements and made them work. It is also one of the early works that reveal, I believe, the influence of Mexican art. I studied in Mexico in the summer of 1956 and absorbed that influence that is still with me today.
5. Maurice Schmidt, People in an Auto, 1960, oil on canvas, 30 x 42 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
6. Maurice Schmidt, The Fruit Vendor, 1961, colored woodcut, 7.5 x 9 inches. This brightly colored image comes out of my childhood. Mr. Heydrich, what was then called a “Truck Farmer” would come house to house in his blue pick-up truck piled high with his fresh fruits and vegetables. He would arrive at about early to mid-morning. Pick-up trucks were a lot smaller then, but then so too were refrigerators, then called “ice boxes”. My brother, Baurch, or Barry as he was called, and I would rush up the front steps and knock on the door shouting, “The vegetable man is here!” Mother would step out of the house and the three of us would go down to the curb and select. Mother would inspect and select, and Mr. Heydrich would weigh and bag. He had a small scale on his tuck, and a blue canopy. In about fifteen to twenty-five minutes, this age-old farmto-market ritual would be done and paid for. The morning sun poured its light over the many colored fruits and vegetables as Barry and I gently squeezed some of those bright colored splendors. Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
7. Maurice Schmidt, Cow and Calf, 1965, drypoint etching on paper, 9 x 12 inches. Polished copper plate with a pointed steel needle is in a true sense like pulling and pushing a plow through a field of dirt. The thin lines dug into the plate are rough ledged on both sides. Under magnification they truly resemble the piles of dirt pushed up on both edges of a plowed field. Printing ink is squeezed into furrows and into the rough metal edges. Under the press, these uneven ridged lines form a velvety black (or other color) line- uneven on both sides. Where scratching is done over an area of the plate, the texture on the plate gives a velvet looking area like a patch of black cloth, the opposite of the airy darkness made by closely massed lines. The drypoint etching appears to have been loved by Rembrandt, the 17th Century master of Holland. He used this direct approach in spontaneous manner as in so many of his ink and wash drawings. He may have had finished drawings in mind, but all hi works have a completeness of expression, often combining his etching with drypoint method. Printed from aluminum plates, these drypoint etchings were drawn directly with a pointed steel tool by the artist making scratches into the surface of the metal, as if drawing with a pen and ink. The ink is pressed into the plate’s lines and then imprinted on damp paper by rolling through a press. Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
8. Maurice Schmidt, Two on a Bench, 1968, drypoint etching on paper, 9 x 11.25 inches. Polished copper plate with a pointed steel needle is in a true sense like pulling and pushing a plow through a field of dirt. The thin lines dug into the plate are rough ledged on both sides. Under magnification they truly resemble the piles of dirt pushed up on both edges of a plowed field. Printing ink is squeezed into furrows and into the rough metal edges. Under the press, these uneven ridged lines form a velvety black (or other color) line- uneven on both sides. Where scratching is done over an area of the plate, the texture on the plate gives a velvet looking area like a patch of black cloth, the opposite of the airy darkness made by closely massed lines. The drypoint etching appears to have been loved by Rembrandt, the 17th Century master of Holland. He used this direct approach in spontaneous manner as in so many of his ink and wash drawings. He may have had finished drawings in mind, but all hi works have a completeness of expression, often combining his etching with drypoint method. Printed from aluminum plates, these drypoint etchings were drawn directly with a pointed steel tool by the artist making scratches into the surface of the metal, as if drawing with a pen and ink. The ink is pressed into the plate’s lines and then imprinted on damp paper by rolling through a press. Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art A scene no longer with us in these days of self-serve, the Gulf Station was the first to disappear. I tried to catch something of what it felt like being in the car and people rushing out to you, leaning over, hopping all around your car, opening the hood, putting gas in the tank, air in the tires, and smiling at you through the windshield as they wiped it, their hands making waving gestures as the chamois cloths wiped the glass clean. Where else could you get that much service, that many servants coming to you at one time in a few minutes? It didn’t matter what kind of car you drove, an old used one, a jalopy, a high end, literally Cadillac, Buick, or Lincoln. I never thought it would all disappear someday. Looking back on it now, I see it as a kind of metaphor of America. It gave equal service for all; every carriage carried a king or a queen. In time, many of these so-called “filling station boys” would equal or excel the drivers they so happily served. Those chamois filled hands and motor oiled fingers put them through college, and if not that, provided for their families. They, too, were car owners and drivers, who themselves pulled into filling stations and were served like kings and the ladies like queens. All across the country, it was this way; the innate, unspoken democracy that sparked between a car driver and the filling station. Is it another “only in America” story? I never thought about it this way until now, after it has disappeared. I don’t think a self-serve station comes near it. It’s all self and no serve. Getting gas doesn’t just cost more now. It has become a lot lonelier too.
9. Maurice Schmidt, Gulf Station, 1970, oil on linen, 48 x 60 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
10. Maurice Schmidt, Night Freight, 1974, oil on linen, 60 x 72 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art At an intersection where four roads meet and often used by melon vendors, there I saw a young boy herding his goats. He was as he appears here; smiling his toothy smile and standing barefoot in the sun. I studied him, his animals, the colors that sunlight makes on skin and hair. His eyes and mine met, and so did the eyes of his goats. A goat has a wonderful stare. Their yellow eyes with their elongated pupils seem almost machine-like like headlights. They size you up without blinking, and of course, their little jaws are always chewing their cud, unwavering in their rotary motion. They are telling me something, “hey stupid, I know something you don’t know.” They are natural humblers, like surly school children, immune to all human pretensions. No wonder some of the greatest leaders and teachers of mankind were educated by them. Was this really a goatherd I was seeing or an apparition of the young David? When a king goes forth, the gates fly open before him and when he returns, they open to let him in and all the people cheer his passing by. But when the son of a prince opens the gates for his goats in the morning and lets them in again when they return in the evening, no one cheers or even bothers to say, ‘thank you.” Still, an honorable profession is this goat herding. Moses practiced it for forty years.
11. Maurice Schmidt, Goat Boy, 1976, oil on linen, 35 x 43.5 inches.
I knew immediately I was going to paint this scene. It did not gestate a long time. When I began painting, it came forth spontaneously. I am always eager to watch goats. I have done paintings of them over the years. I already had a sense of them, their comical movements, so unlike the graceful deer whose body shape they share. I remember before starting this painting that I needed a close up view of the animals. I wanted to incorporate the sense of touch as much as color and the play of light and shadow over their bodies. I can’t remember where but I did come across some goats penned in a small trailer, or was it the back of a pickup truck? I did my looking and petting and then began my painting. I needed a close-in feeling because I wanted somehow to place myself and the viewer, in among the goats, in the place of the goat boy himself.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
Polished copper plate with a pointed steel needle is in a true sense like pulling and pushing a plow through a field of dirt. The thin lines dug into the plate are rough ledged on both sides. Under magnification they truly resemble the piles of dirt pushed up on both edges of a plowed field. Printing ink is squeezed into furrows and into the rough metal edges. Under the press, these uneven ridged lines form a velvety black (or other color) line- uneven on both sides. Where scratching is done over an area of the plate, the texture on the plate gives a velvet looking area like a patch of black cloth, the opposite of the airy darkness made by closely massed lines. The drypoint etching appears to have been loved by Rembrandt, the 17th Century master of Holland. He used this direct approach in spontaneous manner as in so many of his ink and wash drawings. He may have had finished drawings in mind, but all hi works have a completeness of expression, often combining his etching with drypoint method. Printed from aluminum plates, these drypoint etchings were drawn directly with a pointed steel tool by the artist making scratches into the surface of the metal, as if drawing with a pen and ink. The ink is pressed into the plate’s lines and then imprinted on damp paper by rolling through a press.
12. Maurice Schmidt, Dos Cabritos, 1980, color etching, 5 x 9 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
Mercurio is in this tree, though you may not see him at first glance. As he trims off the dead fronds, he becomes at one with the palm tree world, its shelter and collected dust, its whispery sounds as the breeze sifts through its leaves, a sound somewhat like the crinoline in petticoats or ocean waves in the distance. Most of all, it is the dappled sunlight that speaks to the painter. It filters through the brown duncolored leaves in lines and dots endlessly shifting and flashing as if they were daytime lightening bugs. They land on and filter through Mercurio’s straw hat and come to rest on his khaki colored clothes. Yes, Mercurio and his palm tree are one and, by this time, I too had become the friend and admirer of the palm tree. As much as any tree, it changes with the seasons. In spring, it is resplendent, “like an athlete stepping forth to run the race, like a bridegroom stepping forth from his chamber.” Thus does David’s psalm describe the sunrise. But in the autumn season, the palm wears a dun colored cape, the dusty robe of the wanderer. It takes on the aspect of a stranger rather than the admired native. This trimming of its fronds takes place near the holiday of Succot, the harvest of pilgrimage of the Jewish people, from hence comes our own American Thanksgiving. The fronds make excellent covering for the booths we build during the festival week. This biblical holiday was established immediately upon the Exodus from Egypt when we are reminded to be kind to the stranger, “for you were strangers in a strange land.” 13. Maurice Schmidt, Tree Trimmer (Autumn Palm), 1980, oil on linen, 72 x 60 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art This was a painting that I deliberately went looking for. I wanted to do a painting like the painters of earlier centuries, figurative work wherein real people sat and posed. Only a few blocks away from where we lived, there was a gas station. It had been there many years on Sixth Street and I noticed old men hung around there to visit. Its unique feature was a circular concrete umbrella that shaded the gas pumping area. I had patronized it often. When I was growing up, filling stations were sometimes small scale socializing places, especially if they sold some groceries, sodas, and tobacco. They were the most informal places perhaps in the world and made no demands on their clientele’s dress or social status. I arrived with my charcoal pad and there were the two gentlemen you see here. They were happy to pose and enjoyed the attention. Usually I pay a little when I ask people to pose but I honestly do not remember if I paid these gentlemen. I hope so. I drew each one in turn, separately, a head and shoulders portrait, but also observed hands and body positions. They sat in their habitual ways. I didn’t actually pose them. I made the drawings in a little over an hour, thanked them and got ready to leave. And then a most wonderful thing happened. They stood up and put their arms around each other’s shoulders and sang me a sweet old Hispanic song. They were quite a duet. We had hardly spoken to each other, but between my silent drawing and their mellow singing, we parted as friends.
14. Maurice Schmidt, Viejos in Park, 1980, oil on linen, 50 x 60 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
I wanted my scene to be in a park, under a palm tree with the men on a bench, the light pouring over them like gentle rain, soaking surfaces and missing shadows. The elderly woman is an invention. She wasn’t actually there but I wanted a third figure. The background and the bench play major roles in the composition giving it a deep thrust backward into an implied space. The arches formed by benches legs and the spaces between the mens’ legs suggest architectural elements. Such compositions which combine living human forms and a geometric element are not mechanically planned. It comes with seeing. The men’s hats, heads and feet are also somewhat geometricized. It’s the same cube, cylinder, and cone principle that Cezanne talked about and that was taught in all the art schools. But as with any knowledge, to understand it you have to go beyond reading about it. You have to teach yourself to see it by seeing it in the real world around you. Then it flows out the end of your brush.
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
Koffee Kup was a cozy little restaurant square in the center of downtown Kingsville, a door or two down from the J.C. Penny store, now the Bryant Gallery. Look closely at the window and you can still see the name, Koffee Kup, etched in the glass like a translucent fingerprint. I think the courthouse lawyers favored this place. They liked to meet here with their colleagues and clients. I remember hearing laments once at the courthouse when this little coffee shop closed down. Something about its long, narrow space and dim light gave it a quiet atmosphere where people talked in low tones. Sad to confess, I never once went in. My interest was strictly painterly. The dark space inside gave the large glass window a dark blue tinge when the sunlight struck it at mid-morning, coffee-break time. Koffee Kup was painted in bright red letters forming an arch across this glass. The effect was like giant rubies set in sapphire. Looking close through the glass, you saw the people sitting in a graded perspective of colors. Often a patch of bright-colored clothing or part of a face shone back at me through the glass. But always, that pane of glass dominated all the colors shining through it from the inside. It was an invisible wall between two worlds. One was encased in the hot brass-colored light outside, the elements of concrete street, sidewalk, and parking meters and some elderly old-time Kingsville guys chatting away under the circle of shade provided by their old straw hats. The second space was marked by that vertical pane of glass which, like the surface of a clear pond, one could look through to the coolness of another world, to strange creatures floating and feeding and every now and then catching a piece of sunlight.
15. Maurice Schmidt, Koffee Kup, 1980, oil on linen, 60 x 72 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
This wonderment when different kinds of spaces meet and interact is a fascination that goes very far back in my life, to childhood. I have long thought that the mirror, the reflective surface was the first painter and perhaps the ultimate painter, reproducing not just color and shape, but space itself. What is the thickness of a reflection? How deep into the surface of a pond does a refection go? What is the weight of a shadow? The philosophic ruminations of a painter are of no practical value whatever, but they can transform the mundane into all kinds of mental excitement. I never met these old men. I just saw them talking there, their straw hats transforming sunlight into raindrops of light dancing on their cheeks and shoulders. Two worlds here, the outdoor and the man-made indoor, hopefully brought to a single unity.
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
16. Maurice Schmidt, Four Pigs, 1981, oil on linen, 20 x 24 inches. No one, except in insult, would say a pig resembles a human being. Yet, on close observation, the mobility of the pig’s facial movements, especially around the eyes, seems to have far greater variety and nuance than any other mammal I have observed, including monkeys. The monkey has a great variety of mouth gestures but I’m not certain that their eyes equal the pig’s in range of expression. Add the pink skin color, the jowly flab between the lower jaw and neck, and the fact that the pig is considered more intelligent than a dog, and, in this animal, we have a possible companion. The sound of his squeal is much more human than the bark of a dog. The variety of his sounds, mouth movements, and gestures make him an almost conversant friend which more than makes up for his disinclination to fetch things. He may tend to get skittish if invited to dinner, but then whose fault is that? Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
17. Maurice Schmidt, Cleaning the Plow, 1981, oil on canvas, 44 x 71 inches. “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares.” The plow versus the sword: what could be farther apart metaphorically then these universal implements: the sword for war and the plow for peace. Yet both are instruments for cutting and both need tending and sharpening. The plow cuts into the earth, creating a wound in the topsoil, but also a womb in the earth for the sprouting of seed. For all the advancements of modern agriculture, this ancient implement remains essentially like its ancestor, a blade to cut the soil instead of flesh. “Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, ‘lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears; but all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his plowshare,” “So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan.” “And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, was about twenty men, within as it were half a furrow’s length in an acre of land.”2 In these short passages, the Bible, that most pastoral of books, reveals the double edged nature of sword and plow, of war and peace. In this painting of an utterly peaceful and ordinary to the point of boredom moment, a farmer, perhaps his helper or his “armor bearer must now interrupt the motion of his work to tend his plow, the implement upon which all else depends. The point and the edge of this blade is the farmer’s first physical contact with the flesh of the field. The High Priest prepared the burnt offerings upon a much smaller altar with only a somewhat different blade. The change from sword into plowshare is not so much wrought by the blacksmith at his forge as it is by the forging of a higher purpose in the human heart. Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art By the roadsides in the morning or in the heat of the day, the melon vendors’ produce seems to suck in the sunlight and generate enormous amounts of coloristic energy. They are like oases in the desert, small places of shade and coolness, quiet and restful, and offering refreshing fruit. The concentration of yellow greens in the sun and blue green as the stacked melons retreat into the deep shade of a covered truck or tent are here contrasted against the gold tint of yet another melon, the cantaloupe. Blues and yellows against golds generate currents of radiant color energies. A single slash of red, exposing the flesh of the watermelon, almost the first stroke of color I put down, proved the most decisive. It remained unchanged throughout the painting process.
18. Maurice Schmidt, Melon Vendor, 1986-90, oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
It is the simple, quiet humanity of the scene that attracts me. These tiny places suddenly appear and always with people sitting quietly, waiting in a spot of shade, like the Patriarch Abraham sitting in the door of his tent waiting for strangers. When my father (of blessed memory) was a boy, he would load up watermelons on a mule-drawn wagon in Seguin and go the fourteen miles to New Braunfels, a journey at that time of about three to four hours. He would set up by the train station and wait for the passenger trains to bring in his customers. He was not to return home until all were sold. His wage per day was a single penny. This would have been about 1908.
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art The goat hauler is making a turn, a change of direction. For a moment (that in this instance will never change as long as the painting remains), the truck driver and his trailer full of goats are moving in different directions at right angles. This is no news story event but visually, it is a magnificent painterly event. Perspectively, it is very rich and the scene in its entirety allows me an opportunity to do some of my favorite things; to play with combining different qualities of space and to do it with favorite subjects: pick-up trucks and cowboy-hatted drivers, and, of course goats, those curiously temperamental biblical animals with the body of a deer but the grace of a walking duck. Against the big outdoor space of a hot South Texas day, there are the confining spaces of the cab of the pick-up containing its driver, and the box-like network of steel crowding together multi-colored goats.
19. Maurice Schmidt, Goat Hauling, 1989, oil on linen, 43 x 71 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
The box gives us three angles of vision: two side views and a little top view. Some goats are in the shade, some in direct sunlight. Their dappled markings are never far removed from variations of earth tones and they are, as far as light and shadow are concerned, a painterly challenge of some complexity. Light and particularly the light of South Texas make wonderful events from ordinary things. I have observed that places near oceans produce a limpid transparent, softer light than the more scenic inland areas or mountain landscapes. Light, not scenery by itself, is the greater part of my subject. The Netherlands, the country of Rembrandt, Van Ruisdael, and Vermeer is also flat and near the ocean and has a similar soft, pristine light.
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
“I will respond, saith the Lord, I will respond to the heavens. And they shall respond to the earth; And the earth shall respond to the corn, and the wine, and the oil; And I will have compassion upon her that had not obtained compassion; And I will say unto them that were not My people: ‘Thou art My people.’ And they shall say: ‘Thou art my God.” A tractor changes the color of the field it labors in. A red tractor draws out the tans on the Earth and the purple in the sky. A green tractor, like the John Deere, pulls yellows and blue greens out of the ground and tends to melt into the soft blue elements of the heavens. On a Sabbath morning on my way to services, I saw this scene; these two green tractors reaching the edge of the field near the road as I was driving by. One was coming towards me and the other had just turned around and was going away. It was tilling time and the corn was high. As they came parallel, the one moving forward and the other going back, an incredible burst of color energy was generated between the tractors themselves and simultaneously throughout the field. Almost like an electric burst, the colors showered over me. Symmetries of space were also formed, by the tillers at the ground plane, the farmers in their cabs, sitting exactly on the horizon line and protruding upward into the heavenly plane. Here we see the farmer as midwife to the Earth. He tills and sows and the heavens respond. God waters the earth and the fertile soil responds with her abundant, life-giving offspring. Evoking this Biblical metaphor, Hosea is calling his people, who have strayed like an unfaithful wife, to return, to leave the wilderness of false gods and become again fields of abundance.
20. Maurice Schmidt, Twin Tractors, 1989, oil on linen, 50 x 60 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Hosea describes a very sensuous, almost orgasmic-like embrace between God and man, but it’s an old biblical metaphor for an eternal covenant. Some of this covenantal sensuousness may have crept into the painting. The space between the two tractor cabs form a rectangle of space of about the same proportion as the Ark of the Covenant, and from a distance the yellow hubs of the tractor wheels protrude into the field as the staves of the Ark protruded through the veil of the Holy of Holies as one great sage writes, “like the breasts of a woman.”
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art Reaching the end of his field, the farmer turns his machinery to return it to its task. One may contemplate this farm life painting for nothing else but its color, its composition, and their relation to its subject. But the Hebrew metaphor for repentance, “teshuvah” means to complete a cycle, to “return,” and by analogy to turn from one’s wrong direction and go back, return to our Father, to a righteous life. In scripture, moral teaching is couched not in the definitions of philosophers but in stories and metaphors drawn from the real lives of everyday people: farmers, herdsmen, and artisans. The observation of daily events and ordinary acts to teach profound lessons develops out of Biblical tradition. “…love the Lord your God and … serve Him… I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, and thou shalt eat and be satisfied.”1 Like the high priest ministering the offerings, the herdsman and farmer carry out their rituals in tandem to cosmic time, the cycle of the seasons observable through the changes of sun and moon and the migration of birds. Their labor is part of a cosmic drama between Earth and heaven with man in between as God’s anointed steward. In a tradition that observes the ordinary, an act of farming routine, the mere turning of a great machine can become a messenger of the innate holiness possible in daily tasks. 1
21. Maurice Schmidt, Teshuva Turning, 1997, oil on linen, 72 x 60 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Deuteronomy 11:13-15 (part of the daily Jewish prayer)
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
22. Maurice Schmidt, Perch and Pear, 2004, oil on canvas, 18 x 22 inches. One of my rare still life paintings. This is a study of sunlight coming through a window flowing over different surfaces, organic and inorganic: a fish glows blue and green with shiny blue-grey scales flowing into a white porcelain dish on a table. It’s a simple looking subject, but it contains almost the full gamut of painting techniques: thick, thin and translucent paint tones of cool blues, bright green brush strokes, glowing gold-skinned pear, and warm and cool reds, yellows, blues, and whites from pure to off white grays, and subdued blue shadows here and there. Still life is often the technical school of the painter, the lab of experiment for all the aspects of the painter’s art. Color against color, over color, amount of subject versus background space, nearness and distance, thick strokethin stroke, fast-slow movement of wrist and hand, all in play like an orchestra quartet, solo instrument or song. The painter does all the choosing among his means, a freedom different from more specialized genres. Cezanne was especially drawn to the still life. It was the center of his art. More than most, he saw its truth: that a fine still life is not still. As Galileo said of the cosmos: “It moves”.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
23. Maurice Schmidt, Horses by Moonlight, Brenham, TX, 2007, oil on canvas, 49 x 49
A late night in Brenham farm field- two Palomino horses are in the lower part of the painting in front a of a large leafy tree. In the far back of the field a solitary black horse silhouetted in front of a bright patch of moonlight. Sky, field, tree, and horses are suffused in bright moonlight. The scene, as I remember it, was of a spectacular stillness ablaze in colors of the night. Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
And God said: ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. (Genesis 1: 6-7) In this large vertical painting a single-masted shrimp boat floats upon the water. Its tall mast pokes into the heavens above, uniting the two elemental sources of water- the face of the deep and the heavens above. 24. Maurice Schmidt, Between the Waters, 2011, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
25. Maurice Schmidt, Around the Red Checkered Table Cloth, 2011, oil on linen, 36 x 48 inches. This Texas roadside café scene is no longer as ubiquitous as it was only a few years ago. The spreading broad brimmed straw hats worn by working men and tractor drivers have also diminished in number, replaced by various long billed baseball caps. Why should these harmless, innocuous changes in head gear bother me? They are not threatening, nor demanding of any great social change or revolutionary thought. Perhaps, they have something in common with drastic changes in say, a military uniform, which also is not usually a threat. Perhaps, a link is related to the newness of a uniform. Ubiquity of clothing is in some way a form of language, or speech, or even a certain accent. The actor dressed in costume more naturally takes on his prescribed character. Appearance is a major part of drama and not only on the stage.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art
26. Maurice Schmidt, Cow, Calf and New Moon, 2013, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 inches. The nurturing of young animals under the watchful care of the adults is an arresting scene. Motherhood in animals closely resembles our own human condition, so much so, that we instantly feel our animal kinship. In movement, gesture and even sound, these scenes can make us feel a primordial form of speech calling to us. We all are animals, but there are moments when I’m watching these cattle that it seems they are acting like parents and their infants are impatient to grow up.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art 1958-1963 Lecturer, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX
Maurice Schmidt (American, b. 1936) Born in 1936, artist Maurice Schmidt grew up New Braunfels. He earned his BFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1958, followed by his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI in 1958. After graduation, Schmidt lived in central Texas and was a member of the San Antonio art community from 1958 to 1963, during which he lectured at Our Lady of the Lake University. In 1965, Schmidt began his career in teaching in the Art Department at Texas A&M University, Kingsville, where he taught for over forty years, retiring in 2006 as Professor Emeritus Art. Additionally, Schmidt served as an art critic for the Corpus Christi Caller Times from 1974 to 1989. Today, Schmidt continues to reside in Kingsville, TX. His works can be found in the permanent collection of: Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX; McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX; Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX; and Texas A&M University Kingsville Art Collection, Kingsville, TX. Of note, Schmidt has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Conner Museum, Texas A&M University—Kingsville, TX, which will be on view August 30-October 25, 2018. With his unique style, Schmidt creates a dynamic sense of motion and color in his works, many which focus on his interpretation of the unique South Texas region he calls home. Biographical and Career Highlights 1936 Born and raised in New Braunfels, TX 1956 B.F.A., University of Texas- Austin, Austin, TX 1956 Instituto, San Miguel De Allende, Mexico 1958 M.F.A., Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI 1958 School of the Museum of the Fine Arts, Boston, MA 1965-2002 Professor of Art Emeritus, Texas A&M University- Kingsville, Kingsville, TX 1974-1989 Art Critic, Corpus Christi Caller Times, Corpus Christi, TX
Selected Exhibitions 2006 April, One Man Show-Retrospective, Bryant Gallery, Kingsville Texas 2005 May 23rd to June 23 , One Man Show, John E. Conner Museum, Kingsville, October 7th to October 30th' Masters Invitational 2005, Corpus Christi Area Artists, Art Center of Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas 2001 June 26th to July 14th, Annual Small Works Invitational, Blue Mountain Gallery, New York City, New York. June to July, Rockport Invitational Sculpture Show, Rockport Art Association, Rockport, Texas. 2000 October 13th to November 30th, First Biennial Visual Perspective Invitational, Joseph A. Cain Memorial Art Gallery, Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, Texas. 1997 Jazz - Preservation Hall Musicians, New Orleans oil painting added to the permanent collection of the Art Museum of South Texas. March to April, Art Faculty Exhibition, Texas A&M University - Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas. 1996 April, Art Faculty Exhibition, Texas A&M University — Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas 1995 Palm, oil painting donated to KEDT Public Television Gallery. March to April, Art Faculty Exhibition, Texas A&M University - Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas. 1994 January, Art Teachers Art, Exhibition of Art Faculty from TAMUK, TAMUCC, Del Mar College, and Bee county college at the Art Community Center, Corpus Christi, Texas. February to March, Art Faculty Exhibition, Texas A&M University — Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas. June to July, From Generation to Generation, In Memory of My Father and Mother, A one-man exhibit at Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art 1993 September, Texas A&M University, Kingsville Art Faculty Exhibit of Small Works, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas. July, Eight Paintings of South Texas Theme, Chamber of Commerce Building, Kingsville, Texas. June, twenty-six paintings on permanent loan in the meeting hall, Jewish Community Council, Corpus Christi, Texas. April, Tribute to Music Exhibit, Ben P. Bailey Art Gallery, Texas A&M University — Kingsville, Painting was featured in the Faculty Exhibit and purchased for TAMUK in conjunction with the "Center of Excellence" program. 1991 August, Woodcut added to permanent collection, Amy Freemen Lee: A Texas Collector, Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. 1990 January to June, System Art Exhibition Series, Texas A&M University — College Station. October to November, One Man Show, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. April, Biography and work featured in Deep in the Heart: The Lives and Legends of Texas Jews, Published by the Texas Jewish Historical Society, Ruthe Winegarten, author. 1988 February, Yiddish Tradition Through South Texas Culture, Hillel Jewish Student Center Art Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio. March, Yiddish Tradition Through South Texas Culture, One-man exhibit at Goethe Institute of Houston, German Cultural Center, Houston, Texas. 1987 March, Yiddish Tradition Through South Texas Culture, One-man exhibit at the Multi-Cultural Center, Corpus Christi, Texas. 1985 July, Gettysburg Address Folio of woodcuts and lithographs, Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Springfield, Illinois. 1982 April, One-man show at the Laurie Auditorium Gallery, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. Sixteenth Annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture Show, Joseph A. Cain Memorial Gallery, Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, Texas International
Group Exhibition, Etchings featured at the United States Cultural Center, Tel Aviv, Israel. 1980 May to June, One-man Exhibit of Prints, Drawings, Watercolors, Oil Paintings and Sculptures, Nuevo Santander Museum, Laredo Art League, Laredo, Texas. Selected University & Museum Collections McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX; Amy Freeman Lee bequest Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX Texas A&M University Kingsville Art Collection, Kingsville, TX Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX Selected Publications and Lectures In the Shadow of the Divine: The Tabernacle of Exodus as a Work of Art, School of Visual Arts First Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, New York 2000. 2001 The Seven-Branched Lamp: The Menorah of Ancient Israel and Its Covenantal Significance, School of Visual Arts Second Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, New York. 2002 Boxes of Remembrance: The Jewish Ritual of Tefillin As a Symbolic Evocation of the Israelite Tabernacle, School of Visual Arts Third Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, New York. 1996 National Endowment for the Arts and Displacement in Cultural Cohesion, National Social Science Conference, Reno, Neveda, March 1996. Presented by Dr. Allen Ketcham, co-author. Subsequently published in the National Social Science Journal. 1994 Jewish and Biblical Expression Through South Texas Imagery, Brown Bag Lunch Lecture Series, Conner Museum, Kingsville, Texas, December.
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
Maurice Schmidt A Life in Art 1993 Portrait of the Artist as a Jew, Lecture to Bnai Israel Synagogue, Novemeber. 1993 The Arts in Texas: Judaic Art in Kingsville, The Texas Jewish Historical Society Annual Gathering, San Antonio, Texas, March. 1992 Ethical Duality in American Government Policy ad the Arts World's Wreckage of our Symbolic Images and Cultural Memory, Global Village Conference, Barry University, Miami Shores, Florida, March. 1989 Jewish Martyrdom Through Christian Imagery, Lecture at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, May. 1988 The Uses of Contemporary Art with Innocence as a Guide, School of Visual Arts Second Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists, Golden Tulip Barbizon Hotel, New York City, New York, November. 1988 The Tabernacle of Exodus as a Work of Art (based on a book in progress) Brandeis University's National Women's Committee, Corpus Christi, Texas, October. 1985 The Use of Contemporary Art with Innocence as a Guide, Texas A&M University — Kingsville Fifth Annual Faculty Lecture Series, Kingsville, Texas, March. 1984 Lecture on Religious, Historic, Journalistic, and Artistic Concepts of Holocaust Allegory, Texas A&M University — Kingsville Political Science Research Committee Sponsor, Kingsville Texas. 1974 How to Achieve Mastery in Painting and Drawing. Published. 1972 The Myth of Modern Art, Texas A&I University 1964 Marc Chagall — The Jewish Painter, Judaism
Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com
The Mission of Reaves | Foltz Fine Art
Reaves|Foltz Fine Art is dedicated to the promotion of premier Texas artists, from Early Texas Masters and Mid-Century Pioneers to Contemporary Regionalist Artists. The gallery showcases many of the region’s most accomplished and recognized talents who maintain a significant connection to the state of Texas. The gallery represents and exhibits artists working in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, and photography.
The History of Reaves | Foltz Fine Art Since the gallery started in 2006 as William Reaves Fine Art on Brun Street in Houston, the exhibition program has been augmented by survey and group shows that investigate current themes in contemporary art within a historical context. Sarah Foltz joined the gallery as Director in 2013, became partner in 2014. At that time, the gallery becameReaves|Foltz Fine Art, and relocated to 2143 Westheimer in the historic River Oaks District. William Reaves retired from the gallery in December of 2017, and Sarah Foltz assumed ownership. She is dedicated to maintaining the core mission of the gallery. In addition to promoting the work of represented artists, our strength is guiding and educating both the new, as well as the seasoned, collector. We actively advise and assist institutions and private individuals in the acquisition and sale of artworks. Many of our represented artists have been acquired into impressive private and institutional collections around the world, with many earning their first museum exhibitions through the gallery. The gallery has mounted numerous monographic exhibitions, as well as published scholarly catalogues, and has aided in the publication of several book projects, both on represented artists and key environmental issues affecting Texas landscape and wildlife. Critically acclaimed gallery artists and their work have been reviewed nationally and locally in publications, such as Art in America, Art Houston, Paper City, Southwest Art, Texas Monthly, Art Ltd., Glasstire, The Houston Chronicle, Art + Culture Texas, and Culture Map, among others. William Reaves|Sarah Foltz Fine Art also has a strong reputation as a secondary market specialist, offering research and source artworks of exceptionally high quality with the utmost discretion. The gallery offers the following art services: Fine Art Appraisals, Brokering, Consulting, and Sales. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm and other times by appointment. William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road Houston, TX 77098 713-521-7500 info@reavesart.com Sarah Foltz, Gallery Owner Mariah Rockefeller, Director sarah@reavesart.com mariah@reavesart.com Reaves | Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, TX • 77098 Tuesday - Saturday • 10am - 5pm • 713.521.7500 • reavesart.com