Lot 67211: FRANK REAUGH (American, 1860-1945) Horizon

FRANK REAUGH (American, 1860-1945) Horizon Landscape at Sunset Pastel on paper 3 x 7 inches (7.6 x 17.8 cm) window Frank Reaugh was an artist who devoted the vast majority of his considerable artistic skills to depictions of West Texas and its legendary longhorns. He has been called "Dean of Texas Artists" because of the many art students who accompanied him on the frequent sketching trips he made to West Texas throughout his lifetime. His pastel landscapes and cloud studies remain some of the most poetic depictions of Texas's Great Plains ever produced. Reaugh's mastering of the pastel medium, well adapted to transport and use in open country, allowed him to easily travel the vast expanses of the state and to work in the outdoors with relatively little fuss. Pastels are beautiful when blended by a master to create the atmospheric effects, vivid colors, and ever changing light of West Texas, to capture the dramatic far-off horizons and spectacular skies found in the region. Most of Reaugh's pastels are consistently small in size. Although this is largely due to the necessities of plein-air painting, most examples of his work are even smaller than practicality demanded. However, it is possible that he purposely encouraged the tension between his seemingly boundless subject, the West Texas plains, and the miniature size of the artworks he produced to highlight their inherent conflict. In other words, the artist might have made these pastels so intimate, requiring close study by the viewer, as a contrast to the true experience of such overwhelmingly large vistas. In this manner, he reveals the inability of any traditional artistic medium to do this landscape justice while simultaneously capturing its essence in a lyrical and moving manner.

Visibly good condition, not examined outside of frame.