Everett Spruce

Everett Franklin Spruce was born near Conway, Arkansas, in 1908 and moved to Dallas in 1925 to study at the Dallas Art Institute under Olin Travis and Thomas Stell. He quickly emerged as one of the most original talents of the "Dallas Nine," the circle of regional modernists who reshaped Texas art beginning in the late 1920s. Spruce's reputation grew rapidly: he exhibited at the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, became the first Dallas artist to show at New York's Delphic Studios in 1937, and saw the Museum of Modern Art acquire one of his paintings in 1939. In 1940 he joined the art faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for more than thirty years and influenced generations of Texas artists. His mature work distilled the Southwestern landscape into rugged, semi-abstract forms — stark hills, desert birds, and animals rendered in earthy color and powerful design. Today his paintings are held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and remain highly sought after among collectors of Texas modernism.