One exhibition currently on view at Deborah Colton Gallery honors the career and legacy of Houston native and artist Bert L. Long, Jr, an artist most dedicated to his craft and beloved by this community. Entitled Bert Long: Looking for the Right Time, and curated by friend and historian Pete Gershon, this exhibition surveys the decades-long career of “one of the most talented, versatile, and prolific artists ever to hail from the state of Texas,” as Gershon puts it. “With his paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs, he sought above all else to communicate with the viewer. Bert once said of his work, “I paint in order to help people understand their ills so that they might cure them.”

Bert Long passed away in 2014 and the Houston arts felt acutely the loss of one of its most passionate members. I met him once at the gallery and was utterly charmed by his sincerity and quick sense of humor. I gathered from that one and only interaction that Bert was able to see through facades to the true nature of a person. He and Suzanne share this discerning sensibility.

The images above, recently resurfaced, show Long’s artwork in a New York exhibition. Suzanne traveled with artists and peers and was able to capture these candid shots.

Bert, a self-taught artist, was born in 1940 in Texas, grew up the Houston’s historic Fifth Ward and received his formal education from UCLA. Following a career as a master chef Long decided to devote himself entirely to art in 1979. He began to explore folk art and assemblage to create a unique body of work, attracting the attention of Jim Harithas, then Director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and artists John Alexander, Salvatore Scarpitta and James Surls. His life spanned an era of radical change in the American social climate, the influence of which can be seen clearly in his work.

Long’s paintings and sculptures incorporate a high level of skill and sophisticated knowledge of art history, along with complex philosophical and social issues. Long describes the philosophy behind his work as “a quest to help people diagnose their inner self,” believing his art to be “the vehicle to help facilitate the process:”

“As artists we have the obligation to provide the world with art which communicates as truth. I believe that art has the power to heal our souls of their afflictions. I try to create art which helps to diagnose the prevalent conditions within our societies, hopefully providing an insightfulness which will help us all become brothers and sisters united in equality and compassion” – Bert L. Long, Jr.

The late Peter Marzio, former Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, said of Bert Long: “Bert Long does not avert his gaze from that which is painful, but as [his artworks] testify, he also brings a spirit of joy and redemption to his art. We can all learn from this great artist.”

Over Long’s 33-year career as a painter, sculptor, and photographer, he was awarded several significant awards including the National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1987 and the prestigious Prix de Rome fellowship in 1990. Other notable awards of Long’s include the Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts Artist of the Year Award in 2009, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Assistance Grant in 1997, The Rome Prize Fellowship, 1990-91, the Houston Art League Texas Artist of the Year in 1990, the NEA Visual Artists Fellowship Grant, 1987, and the Bemis Foundation Residency in 1998. His work can be seen in over 100 private and public collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Blanton Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of Art and the Instituto de Bachillerato in Spain.

Bert Long: Looking for the Right Time is on view at Deborah Colton Gallery through January 28th of this year, and is most worthy of a visit to experience the breadth of talent and expression this artist shared with his audience.

 

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Content originally published by Theresa Escobedo, here, on 12.23.16

As we move along with Focus: Suzanne Paul we continue to uncover rare photographs and gems from Houston’s complex and compelling art history.

Recently, we uncovered some incredible charming portraits of artist Dick Wray, whose earlier portraits convey the charm and wit with which Wray navigated the tight-knit social scene of an earlier Houston and with which he imbued his artwork.

Dick Wray, a native Houstonian, born in Heights Hospital in Houston, was primarily educated in his Texas hometown. He took free art lessons at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in his early teens, graduated from Lamar High School and, following military service in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955, enrolled in the School of Architecture of the University of Houston from 1955 to 1958. He finished his studies at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, Germany in 1959.

Wray took off for Europe in 1958 to discover the center of the art world, beginning his journey in Paris. The two years he spent in Europe laid the foundation for his painting career. Inspired by the art of the abstract expressionists, the work of the artists of the CoBrA group and the New York Abstract Expressionists, all of which he saw for the first time in Europe, Wray returned to Houston at age 26 knowing for certain that he wanted to be an artist, not an architect. Little did he know that one day he would be referred to in the Houston Chronicle (1989) as an “Old Master of Texas Art” (Kalil).

Wray’s first competitive show was at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont in 1959. Since then, Wray exhibited consecutively for 51 years in galleries and museums. He was awarded the Ford Foundation Purchase Prize in 1962, was the guest artist at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1964, and received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1978.

Wray has had extensive solo exhibitions including the One Man Show at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in 1975, Dick Wray at The Station Museum in Houston in 2003 and Dick Wray – 2000 Houston Art League Texas Artist of the Year exhibition at the Art League Houston in 2000 (Baylor University).

He is among the major talents that shaped the evolution of Modernism in Houston, and was featured in the show Artists’ Progress: Seven Houston Artists, 1943-1933 at the Glassell School of Art, MFAH in 1993. In 2006, Wray was featured in the exhibition Texas Modern: The Rediscovery of Early Texas Abstraction at Baylor University in Waco, which acknowledged him as one of the first Texas Modernists. Despite his vast achievements, Wray continued to work comfortably out of his studio/home in the Houston Heights until his death in January 9, 2011 (Edward). Many consider Wray to be among the very best painters in Houston during the pivotal 1960s and 1970s, along with contemporaries Dorothy Hood, Richard Stout, Earl Staley, Charles Schorre, and Jack Boynton.

Above is one of the most enigmatic photograph of an artist produced by Paul, featured in Deborah Colton Gallery’s 2012 exhibition A Moment in Houston.

 

 

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Content originally published by Theresa Escobedo, here, on 11.18.16