Dallas Art Institute

According to the terms of their charter the number of trustees must never exceed 20 or drop below 10, with the inaugural board consisting of 13 people, including noted illustrator Margaret Scruggs-Carruth.

[3] At this time, architect Thomas D. Broad was chosen to act as the school's first executive director to facilitate communications between the board and the Art Institute.

[5] Continuing until the start of World War II, the Alice Street Art Carnivals provided more than 70 local artists (and DAI students) with a venue to sell their work to the public for never more than $5.

It was during this move that Olin Travis left the school he had founded to work elsewhere, with the Dallas Art Institute closing for the final time five years later in 1946.

Attendance picked up again in 1931 when a fresh group of artists was hired to teach an additional selection of courses, including Allie Tennant, Alexandre Hogue, Thomas M. Stell Jr., and former student Jerry Bywaters.

For several summers, a handful of faculty and approximately 50 students spent the months of June and July living and working in the school's 15 crudely furnished cabins.

[8] Holding summer school in the Ozarks was a prime choice for landscape painters, as the property was surrounded on all sides by miles of government forest preserve.

Rebuilding Paris , mural, Jerry Bywaters , Paris, Texas , 1934.
Students painting at Travis Ozark Summer Art School, image from Southern Methodist University
Tejas Warrior , Allie Tennant , 1936, Hall of State .
Oil painting of a young woman standing outside, reading a letter, with a dog at her feet. The background is sparse and indicative of a desert environment, and the woman wears a red top and long dark skirt while carrying a scarf. She has cropped, short, dark hair, a large white dog at her feet to her left, with an open mailbox behind.
The Letter , Amelia Urbach , oil on masonite , 1939, Dallas Museum of Art .