Olin H. Travis

[1] He grew up with some familiarity with the arts as his father worked as a printer, and his next-door neighbor was noted sculptor Clyde Giltner Chandler.

[1] After their wedding, the pair spent several years traveling and sketching in different parts of the country, notably around Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Mexico, the Ozark Mountains, and the area surrounding the Great Lakes.

[6] The pair had met two years prior, on her eighth trip to the area with Reaugh to sketch landmarks like Big Bend, Double Mountains, and Blanco Canyon.

[4] The public response to the exhibition resulted in the first use of the phrase "avant-garde" to describe painting/sculpture, with Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase representing one of the more controversial works.

[11] This wasn't the only time Travis made the news for his opinions on art, with The Southern Review publishing one of his articles titled "A Complaint" in 1928.

[12] While in Chicago, Travis studied under instructors like Kenyon Cox, Harry Walcott, and Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida before graduating with honors in 1914.

"[16] They were founded as a regional branch of the American Federation of Arts, and thus made the inclusion of southern artists in national exhibitions one of their primary goals – something that Travis benefited from greatly.

[4] Olin Travis taught countless students over the years, most notably Everett Spruce,[21] Florence McClung,[22] Otis Dozier,[23] Barney Delabano,[24] James Brooks,[25] and Charles Bowling.

In addition to Kathryne Hail Travis, some of these artists included Jerry Bywaters,[27] Alexander Hogue,[28] Thomas M. Stell Jr.,[29] Howard Shoup,[30] Margaret Scruggs-Carruth,[30] and Allie Tennant.

[31] After leaving DAI in 1941, Travis briefly worked as a guest instructor at the Hockaday School, the San Antonio Art Institute and Austin College before retiring.

[10] Travis began his prolific professional painting career with a focus on Southwestern landscapes before shifting to include a large collection of portraits in his broad portfolio.

In 2016 the city of Dallas recognized these murals on a list of "high value works by historically significant artists in urgent need of conservation," and renovations began two years later for both the Hall of State's interior and exterior at a cost of $14.6 million.

[47] Travis was a fervent anti-segregationist, an opinion that garnered a lot of attention in local newspapers following the Allied Annual Art Exhibition in Dallas in 1935.

[38] In episode #2004 of the American television show Antiques Roadshow that aired in 2015, Travis' painting Ozark Hilltop (1947) was featured in the Little Rock segment and appraised at $10,000.

A painting of the sky surrounded by a gilded, golden frame. The light green ground takes up a small portion of the bottom, with tire tracks streaked across. Behind the greenery are faded purple mountains, with the main focus of the picture being on the large, looming clouds and the bright blue sky. Streaks of blurry rain are visible along the horizon.
Cloud Study , oil-on-board, Dallas Museum of Art .
East Texas Before Oil , Hall of State , Dallas , 1936.
East Texas After Oil , Hall of State , Dallas , 1936.
Dark, lithographic crayon portrait of a Black woman facing left and downward. The image fades from her neck down.
Head , lithograph, 1930, Dallas Museum of Art .
Dark oil painting of a Texas landscape. The image appears yellowed, with rolling green hills below and a light cloudy sky above.
The Ozarks , oil-on-board, 1920–23, Dallas Museum of Art .