Art Historian Critiques CASETA's Expanding Definition of "Early Texas Art"
In a contribution to Glasstire's 25th-anniversary series, an art historian examines the use of the term "early" within the context of Texas art. Established in 2003 in San Antonio, CASETA characterizes early Texas art as creations from 40 years prior, which now encompasses works up to 1986, featuring artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Luis Jiménez. The author, who teaches modern art history at West Texas A&M University, contends that this definition promotes clichéd representations of Texas while neglecting politically provocative pieces, such as those by Eric Avery and Santa Barraza. The essay juxtaposes this with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s innovative interpretation of "early" and highlights CASETA’s publication as a means to rationalize historical context, proposing a "Center for the Advanced Study of All Texas Art" to embrace contemporary works.
Key facts
- CASETA defines early Texas art as work made 40 years prior to the present, a rolling window that ended in 1963 at its 2003 founding and now reaches 1986
- The essay appears in Glasstire's 25th-anniversary series under the October theme Institutional Critique: Considering Power Structures
- CASETA is based in San Antonio and runs a yearly symposium with exhibitions and scholarly lectures
- Robert Rauschenberg and Luis Jiménez now fall within CASETA's definition of early Texas art
- The author teaches modern art history at West Texas A&M University
- Frank Reaugh's estate was placed at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in 1960 with a stipulation that his art not hang with work deemed impressionistic, modernistic, or communistic
- The Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1929 as a rotating collection of the art of the now before converting to a permanent collection
- The author completed doctoral work at the University of Southern California between 2004 and 2010
Entities
Artists
- Robert Rauschenberg
- Luis Jiménez
- Dorothy Hood
- David Bates
- Eric Avery
- Octavio Medellin
- Santa Barraza
- Frank Reaugh
- John Ruskin
- Charles Baudelaire
- Claude Monet
- Pliny the Elder
- Giorgio Vasari
- Denis Diderot
- Clement Greenberg
- Michelangelo
- Raphael
- Jon Todd König
- Richard Meyer
- Terry Smith
- Austin Porter
- Sandra Zalman
- Bonnie Roos
- Martha Utterback
- Victoria Hennesey Cummins
- Light Townsend Cummins
- Jean Stern
- Tim Barringer
Institutions
- Glasstire
- CASETA
- Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art
- West Texas A&M University
- Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
- Museum of Modern Art
- University of Southern California
- Blanton Museum of Art
- University of Texas at Austin
- Texas A&M University Press
- Yale University Press
- MIT Press
- University of Chicago Press
- Bloomsbury
- Irvine Museum
- Witte Museum
- Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
- Hyperallergic
Locations
- Texas
- United States
- San Antonio
- Britain
- France
- Italy
- Ancient Rome
- Paris
- California
- New Haven
- Chicago
- Cambridge
- Massachusetts
- New York
- College Station
- Dallas
- Fort Worth