Josephine Oliver joined Reaugh's painting campaign in 1925 “to sketch Double Mountain. The impressive peak was among Reaugh's favorite sites. At an elevation of 2,400 feet, the mountain dominates the surrounding plain, expressing a stalwart grandeur. As a well-known Texas landmark, Double Mountain evokes the state's exploratory history.” (Lawton and Vogel, 2007)
In 1932, Oliver again painted her impressionistic pastels of the Brazos Canyonlands, including the Double Mountain. This grand, beautiful view continues to be painted and photographed by today's artists.
The Amon Carter Museum has added works of Josephine Oliver to its collection, as well as paintings by L. O. Griffith.
SLIDESHOW
Learn more about Double Mountain, once a sacred place to the Comanches, through The Handbook of Texas, conceived in the 1950s by Walter Prescott Webb, one of the first keen Anglo observers of these plains and canyonlands.
© 2008 Jim Watson
LOUIS OSCAR GRIFFITH
& JOSEPHINE OLIVER-TRAVIS
Rebecca E. Lawton, Curator of Paintings and Sculptures at the Amon Carter Museum and Kevin Vogel, Director of Valley House Gallery have co-written two recent books on Griffith and Oliver: Louis Oscar Griffith, Rediscovering a Texas Printmaker and Earth & Sky, the Pastels of Josephine Oliver-Travis (1908-1991).
These two books focus on recently located works of Griffith and Oliver from this period and greatly enlarge our knowledge of the two artists, of their teacher Frank Reaugh, and of a fascinating period, when artists first ventured into the Texas frontier.
Josephine Oliver-Travis sitting on the running board of the Cicada, 1925. Valley House Gallery.
In 2007, the Valley House Gallery in Dallas and the Museum of Art in Tyler hosted an extensive exhibit of Oliver's work. To see six pastels by this “Renaissance-woman,” click on to the following link:
