The Art Museum of South Texas has just over 2,000 works of art in the permanent collection. The works in the Upper Gallery offer more than one way to be interpreted.  Some of the artists in this gallery have had influence on other artists, some of those artists who site that interest, or influence can be seen in Target Texas: Studio Practice located in the Chapman, Keeler and O’Connor galleries.

One influential Texas-based artist whose work has been a part of the collection for years was Dr. John Biggers. His drawing style employed perspective that included people, many of whom were women and children, who then became the subject of his art for years following returning with his wife from visits to the continent of Africa. Once he returned to the U.S., he continued to paint scenes of domestic life, homes, domestic settings, and customs within family and community. While Biggers was teaching at Texas Southern University, Kermit Oliver became his student, beginning in 1960. After taking drawing and printmaking courses and ultimately making many murals, Oliver graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and teaching credentials for teaching art.  Later in his artistic life, Kermit Oliver was invited to create designs for Hermés scarves. He was the first and only American artist to have been invited, and soon became widely collected in this area. These scarves can be seen in the Horlock Gallery.  Kermit Oliver’s work Demeter, 1994 (Goddess of the Harvest), is a recent acquisition for the permanent collection and can be seen next to his mentor and former art professor installed on the north wall in this gallery. Many other examples of Oliver’s works can be seen in the temporary exhibition, Target Texas: Studio Practice. His work, along with others in the group exhibition, showcase extensive creative output loaned from other collections and art galleries that include and represent the artists.

Tommy Fitzpatrick’s work titled, Upside Down, is done in dramatic perspective of the skyscraper Williams Tower in Houston, Texas. Fitzpatrick’s painting is hard-edged and depicts the building from a severe angle. The luminosity of the windows and the vanishing perspective hold the attention as one might feel a little vertigo looking at this painting. Another artist in the collection whose art is always interesting to Fitzpatrick is California-based Ed Ruscha. The pastel drawing of two words on a gradient background is robust with possibilities. In this pastel, Ruscha includes two graphic words “High Priority”. The lettering is radiant white, from the white of the paper, glowing brightly from the soft colors of pastels. This is a work of art that may ask more questions than it answers! Other artists’ work who Fitzpatrick is interested by include Jennifer Barlett, Josef Albers, and Frank Stella. Find their art in the gallery and see if you can discover why, or how they influence Fitzpatrick.

Jenelle Esparza’s, Filas II (Rows) is an installation of cotton spurs that are coated with an electroplated copper. The luster and varied forms presented in an ordered grid pay homage to the labor and love inherent in working in the cotton fields of South Texas to support a family, and to survive, and thrive. The enclosure of the Plexiglas box and mirror back create a system that reflects a vanishing point and a sense of infinity allowing the viewer to see the rows represented by a shiny single burr as sculptural stand-in for rows of cotton. It is this formalization of a labor so intentional, that makes this work of art beautiful, ordered, visionary and a lasting memory in a work of art communicative of love, respect, beauty, and admiration.

The permanent collection has grown from award-winning purchases beginning in the 1940’s, gifts bestowed for the collection in the 1970’s, to such recent acquisitions as we see in the Upper Gallery today. The permanent collection is a chronicle of our time, and the creative culture that exists through that time in art.