Sara and John Lindsey Series in the Arts and Humanities – serie

In their willingness to leave home and country to create a new city and a new nation, the first Houstonians were a special breed. They were adventurers and builders; they were citizens of the world. This is the story of these people, their descendants and like-minded successors, and their city, up to the end of the Second World War.It is a history marked by murder, mutiny, and the ironies of war, by comedy and high jinks, by heroism and a remarkable generosity. This fascinating social history grew out of Marguerite Johnston's forty years of friendship with the city and its people. It traces Houston's first families through interlinking marriages, charitable associations, and business partnerships. In this book, Johnston brings to light unpublished letters and diaries from those who served with Perry in Japan, who helped Maximillian design Mexico City, who acted for Woodrow Wilson at Versailles, who helped Roosevelt restore the national economy, and who, by conceiving and negotiating the Marshall Plan, saved Western Europe from collapse. She also sketches in warm detail the gentle life of a Southern town and portrays a people of intellect and a natural elegance.Ima Hogg, Houston philanthropist and patron of the arts, once said that Houston was lucky because the first Houstonians who got rich gave their money for schools, parks, hospitals, and the arts. ""This set the pattern,"" she said. ""This is what Houstonians do once they get a little money."" Since 1836, their continuing philanthropy has totaled more than a billion dollars, yet remains personal. It has created a lively cultural scene, a prestigious educational establishment, a pace-setting medical center, and a gracious life-style.Old Houstonians rarely speak of themselves as Texans--they are Houstonians. Their story--not without problems, challenges, and conflicts--is the story of people who have shaped a major American city and who from it, have influenced lives around the world.

In a 1963 novel, Edna Ferber compared the city of Galveston to Miss Havisham, the grey, mournful abandoned bride of Dickens' Great Expectations. A thriving port city in the nineteenth century, Galveston suffered catastrophe in the twentieth as a deadly hurricane and shifting economics dropped a pall over its waterfront and Victorian mansions. Originally conceived as a requiem for the faded city, The Galveston That Was (developed by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and funded by Jean and Dominique de Menil) instead helped resurrect the city. Architect-author Howard Barnstone, renowned portrait photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and architect-photographer Ezra Stoller captured the soul of the city in The Galveston That Was and as a result, inspired a major and successful effort to restore Galveston's historic architectural treasures. Many of the buildings pictured in the book have since been restored, and the pace of demolition slowed dramatically after the book's initial publication. In 1994, Rice University Press, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and George and Cynthia Mitchell, published an updated edition of the book. This printing of the book, now under the Texas A&M University Press imprint, contains the text annotations and updates, plus Peter H. Brink's afterword, that were added to the 1994 edition.

On July 20, 1969, humanity paused with attention locked to television and radio broadcasts as the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission dramatically touched down on the dusty face of the moon. The first word from the lunar surface: Houston.Houston, Space City USA is a visual celebration of the city's historic ties to the US human space program. When President Kennedy declared, ""We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,"" he did so from the campus of Rice University. More than half a century later, Houston continues to serve as the nerve center of the American human space program.Author and photographer Ray Viator, a longtime Houstonian, has lovingly captured the spirit of a city's devotion to space exploration from then to now. Using striking photographs of the full moon as a visual motif of Houston's connection to spaceflight, Viator also weaves together historic images to show how former cow pastures transformed into mission control. Some connections are obvious—the Houston Astros or the Houston Rockets. Others are hidden in plain sight, like the arm patches on the uniform of every Houston police officer that read, ""Space City U.S.A."" Viator's lens captures this and more.Houston, Space City USA not only marks the important milestone of the first lunar landing, but it also helps readers discover and rediscover a city's constellation of connections to one of humankind's greatest achievements.

Many of the historic houses in and around the town of Victoria, Texas, were built between 1875 and 1910 by immigrant owners. From 1973 to 1975, with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rick Gardner traveled throughout the region, taking photographs of these historic homes. Gardner relied on his own instincts and guidance from knowledgeable locals as to where he should aim his lens. This book is an appreciative glimpse at what these vernacular houses looked like a century after their construction.Gardner has teamed up with Victoria historian and preservationist Gary Dunnam to present these rich images along with brief historical sketches of the houses and, where possible, the persons who occupied them when they were newly constructed. The result is an understated and elegant suggestion of what life may have been like for the merchants, bankers, agriculturalists, and others who built and lived in these homes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Designed to appeal to those with a love for old houses and especially for the preservation of historic structures, All the Houses Were Painted White offers its readers a stately appreciation of these homes and their place in the South Texas landscape. It is also a tribute to the architects, owners, and anonymous craftspeople who built the houses-to their vision, skill, ingenuity, imagination, creativity, and endurance.

Bastrop, Texas: a picturesque community of modest size located at the edge of the Lost Pines Forest in Central Texas. Yet, from its vantage point on the banks of the Colorado River, this town boasts 131 sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying the community for its label: “Most Historic Small Town in Texas.”In Historic Homes of Bastrop, Texas, local historians and researchers Robbie Moore Sanders and Sandra Chipley have collected the stories behind nearly a hundred of the city’s most historic dwellings, most built between 1835 and 1950. Copiously illustrated and engaging, the book begins with a quick historical overview of the community that incorporates period photographs, historic floorplans and maps, and engaging stories about the people who built and lived in the homes. In addition, the authors have provided beautiful, full-color photographs of the buildings as they exist today.From the simple dwelling of a community activist to the ornate Victorian mansions of the wealthy, Sanders and Chipley trace the narrative of this culturally rich community through the remarkably varied lives of its people and the houses they built. Readers with an interest in local history and culture and historic preservation as well as visitors to this popular tourist locale—recognized as a “Distinctive Destination” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation—will thoroughly enjoy Historic Homes of Bastrop, Texas.

“Always have a view,” one of Preston Bolton’s favorite sayings, speaks to his architecture, which made the landscape an integral part of the built environment. In his sixty-plus–year architectural career, Bolton, outstanding alumnus of the Texas A&M College of Architecture, designed over 798 projects, has had designs featured in 74 publications, and won 34 design awards. While many of his peers moved on to more public or larger-scale designs, Bolton chose to make his mark on residential architecture in Houston. Focusing on the human element, Bolton believed that everyday life was enhanced by infusing dignity and delight into the built environment.In Preston Morgan Bolton, Texas Architect and Civic Leader, author Lillian Woo writes that Bolton is “a true Texan who developed his values and visions with conviction and unwavering determination,” and whose structures “have stood the tests of time and taste.” With her own style, Woo captures the spirit of Preston Bolton, tracing his architectural career from its beginnings and offering glimpses into his life, serving as a US Army officer in World War II, and becoming a civic and cultural leader in the Houston arts community. The book features some of his award-winning designs, including the Winterbotham residence, Safford residence, two Bolton residences, Loy residence, Ranch House, Halpern-Humble residence, and Shartle residence, as well as an appendix of his letters home from World War II.

Birdsall P. Briscoe (1876–1971) practiced architecture from 1912 to 1956, the span of years during which Houston was transformed from an ambitious town on Buffalo Bayou into an international city, its economy powered by cotton, trade, and oil. The country houses Briscoe designed for three generations of affluent clients, sited in such Houston neighborhoods as Courtlandt Place, Shadyside, Broadacres, and River Oaks, display his exceptional skill in formulating stylistic and social identities for his wealthy clients and their families. In The Architecture of Birdsall P. Briscoe, architectural historian Stephen Fox examines the country houses designed by Briscoe, offering a glimpse into the architect’s methods as well as analyzing how Briscoe constructed a “social architecture” to frame his clientele during periods of economic expansion and contraction. Fox demonstrates how Briscoe cultivated and managed elements of taste, style, and fashion to embody assertions of class identity and solidarity in the context of Houston’s capitalist economy. Additionally, Fox shows how Briscoe and his peers interpreted and reflected early twentieth-century Progressive Era design ideals in giving shape to the vision of local civic leaders. Illustrated throughout with masterful color photography by Paul Hester, this original study of one of Texas’ most distinguished residential architects will enthrall readers with both its detail and its contextual clarity. As he did in his book on the architecture of John F. Staub, Fox delivers a treasure trove of insight into a vital period of Houston’s social history and the architect who helped design it.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States experienced a rapid expansion of church and synagogue construction as part of a larger “religious boom.” The synagogues built in that era illustrate how their designs pushed the envelope in aesthetics and construction. The design of the synagogues departed from traditional concepts, embraced modernism and innovations in building technology, and evolved beyond the formal/rational style of early 1950s modern architecture to more of an expressionistic design. The latter resulted in abstraction of architectural forms and details, and the inclusion of Jewish art in the new synagogues.The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s–1960s introduces an architectural analysis of selected modern American synagogues and reveals how they express American Jewry’s resilience in continuing their physical and spiritual identity, while embracing modernism, American values, and landscape. In addition, the book contributes to the discourse on preserving the recent past (e.g., mid 20th century architecture). While most of the investigations on that topic deal with the “brick & mortar” challenges, this book introduces preservation issues as a function of changes in demographics, in faith rituals, in building codes, and in energy conservation.As an introduction or a reexamination, The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s–1960s offers a fresh perspective on an important moment in American Jewish society and culture as reflected in their houses of worship and adds to the literature on modern American  sacred architecture. The book may appeal to Jewish congregations, architects, preservationists, scholars, and students in fields of studies such as architectural design, sacred architecture, American modern architecture and building technology, Post WWII religious and Jewish studies, and preservation and conservation.

As the creator of the 67-foot-tall “Big Sam” statue of Sam Houston that overlooks Interstate 45 just south of Huntsville, Texas, David Adickes is a pivotal, if sometimes enigmatic, figure in Texas art. Though he made many contributions to the early development of the Houston art scene and to Texas Modernism, which has experienced an upsurge in interest of late, Adickes’s life and work have had no thorough examination. Monumental: The Art of David Adickes tells the story of how a young artist from rural Texas studied with Fernand LÉger in Paris, traveled the world, and returned to Texas to become one of the founders of a thriving art scene. Consideration of his monumental sculptures of Sam Houston, the Beatles, and various US presidents affords readers the opportunity to reflect on the challenges of making public art and navigating its political, cultural, and bureaucratic restrictions. Monumental considers the artistic implications of history, popular culture, kitsch, and even social media while exploring the dichotomy between the frequent academic skepticism and the ongoing mass appeal of Adickes’s oeuvre. Scholars and students of contemporary Texas art, as well as general readers interested in Adickes’s well-known public works, will enjoy this first-ever comprehensive look at a popular Texas artist.

Robert Craig Bunch has interviewed sixty current Texas artists, focusing on painters, printmakers, sculptors, and others whose work, broadly speaking, is inspired by dreams, visions, myths, and imagined worlds. Working in the tradition of predecessors such as Bror Utter, Ben Culwell, Maudee Carron, Kelly Fearing, Jim Harter, Valton Tyler, Harry Geffert, and even more distant antecedents such as Hieronymus Bosch, Hildegard of Bingen, and the prehistoric rock artists of the Lower Pecos, these artists are united by the common theme of taking inspiration from an “inner landscape” that includes elements of the fantastic, the mystical, and the surreal. In his introduction to the interviews, Bunch observes, “Art has many purposes. Among the most ancient and persistent have been the depiction of worlds beyond what is perceived in common—mythical pasts and imagined futures; realms supernatural, magical, and fantastic; and interior worlds of dreams, visions, hallucinations, and unfettered imagination.” Through sensitive examination of these artists and their approach to these works, he affords readers a fresh perspective on the creative process, especially its roots in the subconscious and the human fascination with dreams and altered modes of awareness. Ranging from discussions of filmmaker Richard Linklater to conversations with artist and educator Floyd Newsum while also incorporating less familiar artists such as Houston’s Fariba Abedin and El Paso’s Ho Baron, this collection of interviews with working Texas artists includes a representative image, chosen by each interviewee as a representation of their work. The Art of Dreams, Visions, Other Worlds: Interviews with Texas Artists promises to expand readers’ concepts of the boundaries currently being explored by Texas artists.

"The tenor of my paintings is usually joyful and celebratory with rare expressions of sorrow or even shadows," Lu Ann Barrow wrote in her artist's statement. Represented for many years by the respected Valley House Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Dallas, she acquired many admirers, including former first lady Laura Bush, who commissioned Barrow to create poster art for the Texas Book Festival and the inaugural National Book Festival in 2001. Barrow's works communicate "tremendous joy through a fusion of folk-style genre scenes with biblical subjects," according to art historian Karen Pope.Barrow drew inspiration from not only the Bible but also from travel, rural life, culture, and storytelling. She "wielded a seemingly 'untrained' style that lured viewers in with irresistible details and bright colors," explains Katie Robinson Edwards, curator of Austin's Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum. A student of William Lester and Dan Wingren, Barrow created an oeuvre encompassing such varied subjects as vivid representations of a moment in the life of a country church, illustrations of biblical parables with characters dressed in overalls and straw hats, friends erupting in laughter at a shared joke, or the visual feast evoked by a scene from a Turkish market.Kathleen Davis Niendorff, one of Barrow's many devoted collectors, has assembled a multifaceted look at Barrow's work and influence. Including brief essays from art historians, gallery owners, collectors, friends, and family members, the ultimate focus of Joy to the World: The Life and Paintings of Lu Ann Barrow is on the art itself—the language in which Barrow was most eloquent. Collectors and aficionados will delight in the colorful cornucopia provided by this beloved Texas artist.

Anyone who has ever driven into Huntsville, Texas, from the west on US Highway 190 has glimpsed the now-famous "Cowboy Boot House": a fully functional 700-square-foot, two-bedroom home that features a spiral staircase up to the top of the "boot," offering a panoramic view of the community. It's hard to forget, as is its builder, Dan Phillips.Competitive bull rider, military intelligence specialist, college dance professor, and visionary designer and builder of what he called "recycled houses," Phillips passed away in 2021 at the age of 76. He left behind a host of friends, admirers, and acolytes for his unique approach to low-cost, environmentally friendly home construction, featuring upcycled materials that might include animal bones, discarded license plates, or even bottlecaps. Acquiring a worldwide reputation, Phillips provided keynote lectures at architectural industry gatherings in Hungary and Italy. His TED Talk, "Creative Houses from Reclaimed Stuff," has garnered more than 240,000 views.Choreographing a House: Dan Phillips, Apostle for Sustainable Housing, compiled and edited by Robert M. Maninger and Frank K. Fair, provides readers with a rich view of Phillips's life and work. Filled with color photographs of whimsical—yet practical—creations, the book also records his coordination with other artists to create the colorful Smither Park in Houston, with its quirky collection of mosaic sculptures. This book will both delight and inform readers, especially those interested in a more sustainable and creatively built environment.

"What does it mean to be human at a time when we're struggling with the nature of our humanity, when the world as we thought we knew it is fluid and not fixed? How do we make sense of a world that subjects us daily to a barrage of different technologically processed versions of reality? How do we remain human even within inhuman constraints?" These questions embrace the essence of the lifelong quest of Kermit Oliver, one of Texas's most mysterious artists.In this monumental biography, art historian Susie Kalil surveys the life and work of an artist who is, at once, among the most internationally celebrated and least understood artists of our day. Growing up in Refugio, Texas, immersed in the natural world of the South Texas brush country, and raised in the culture of the Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church, Kermit Oliver possessed a sense, from the time of his earliest memories—that life is full of miracles; that all creation possesses a luminous force; that we are born to journey this world alone and seek belonging and meaning along the way.Containing a stunning assembly of full-color paintings, drawings, and works on paper, this book presents readers with the rich panorama of the artist's oeuvre, spanning the decades from his college education through the creation of his latest works. A survey of Oliver's original scarf designs, commissioned by the venerable Parisian luxury fashion house Hermès, offers an additional glimpse of Oliver's international importance. Kermit Oliver: Enduring Spirit stands as the definitive biography of a Texas artist whose imaginative vision will continue to challenge art enthusiasts for years to come.