Meadows Museum offers rare look at Texas and Southwest art
Two new Meadows Museum exhibits opening Sunday offer a rare look at Texas and Southwest art.
The Collection of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran:
In Honor of a Lone Star Legend
The exhibition features works of art donated to SMU by Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, daughter of renowned Texas artist Jerry Bywaters. The collection includes 49 Bywaters works of a variety of subjects created over the length of his career. Media range from oils and watercolors to pastels, graphite drawings and prints. With this gift, SMU is the largest repository of Jerry Bywaters’ work. Their gift also includes 16 pieces of art from Bywaters’ personal collection.
The evolution of Bywaters’ career is demonstrated in the exhibition with examples of his earliest work – created just after his 1927 graduation from SMU and reflective of his travels to France, Spain and Mexico – through abstract landscapes created in the 1970s. Highlights include the 1937 oil painting, “Sharecroppers Wife,” the lesser-known counterpart to “Share Cropper,” which belongs to the Dallas Museum of Art. Bywaters’ frequent sketching trips are reflected by works such as the 1937 pastels “Chisos Mountains, Big Bend” and “Black Mesa, Near Santa Fe.”
Also on display is an insightful look at Bywaters’ personal art collection, reflecting his influence as an artist, teacher, museum director and leader of the Lone Star Regionalism art movement. The exhibition includes artwork by Otis Dozier, Ed Bearden and DeForrest Judd, fellow Regionalist artists known with Bywaters as part of the Dallas Nine.
Bywaters’ art is characterized by his interest in the interaction between people and the land, influenced by the social effects of the Great Depression. His artistic influence extended through his teaching career, which began at SMU in 1936 where he taught fine arts and art history until 1976. He also left his artistic mark from 1943 to 1964 as director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, now the Dallas Museum of Art, where he oversaw significant growth of the permanent collection and initiated exhibitions featuring the work of regional artists.
In 1980 Bywaters gave his papers, letters, prints and other ephemera to SMU, creating the Jerry Bywaters Collection on Art of the Southwest at SMU’s Hamon Arts Library archives. The documents provide insight to Bywaters’ life as artist, teacher, museum administrator, writer, critic and historian.
The Frances Golden Ware Gift:
Landscapes of the Southwest
The family of the late Frances Golden Ware honored her with a gift to SMU’s University Art Collection of seven 20th-century paintings purchased by Mrs. Ware’s parents from the artists. Mrs. Ware’s children Elizabeth Ware Hennessy, John Roscoe Ware and David Lochridge Ware continued a four-generation family legacy at SMU with their gift and significantly strengthened SMU’s Regionalist art holdings.
The exhibition includes oil paintings by Robert Julian Onderdonk, Elmer Page Turner, Ila McAfee, Bert Greer Phillips, Olin Travis and pastels by Frank Reaugh. Mrs. Ware had fond childhood memories of visiting with her parents the Taos studios of artists Bert Phillips, Ila McAfee and her husband Elmer Page Turner, as well as the Oak Cliff studio of Frank Reaugh.
Members of Mrs. Ware’s family haveplayed important roles at SMU since the University’s founding. Her grandfather, Stephen J. Hay, as Dallas mayor from 1907-11 was instrumental in the bond election campaign that secured Dallas as the home of SMU. Mary Hay, Mrs. Ware’s grandmother, became in 1923 dean of women at SMU. Elise Hay Golden, Mrs. Ware’s mother, taught voice from 1919 until 1957 as a member of SMU’s music faculty. In addition, her father, John Roscoe Golden, served on the SMU Board of Trustees.
A 1944 SMU graduate, Mrs. Ware continued the family legacy as an actively involved student and alumnae, serving on the SMU Alumni Board, the Dedman College Executive Board and the Friends of the SMU Libraries Board. Her family history is chronicled in the Elise Hay Golden Archives, which includes 3,000 family letters, photos and scrapbooks Mrs. Ware gave to SMU’s DeGolyer Library.
From the Exhibits
 San Millan Iglesia (1929) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), oil on canvas. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Taos Mountains (1940) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), oil on board. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 West Texas Railroad Station (1936) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), lithograph. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Self-Portrait Sketch (1927) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), oil on canvas. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Sharecropper's Wife (1937) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), oil on masonite. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Women Washing, Mexico (1930) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), oil on canvas. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Indian Head (1940) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), three-color linoleum block print. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Mexican Mother (1936) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), lithograph. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Navajo Man (1941) By Jerry Bywaters (American, 1906-1989), lithograph. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Calloway and Jerry Bywaters Cochran, 2011. |
 Horse and Rider in Desert Landscape(1935) By Ila McAfee (American, 1897-1995), oil on board. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Elizabeth (Bettina) Ware Hennessy, Dr. John Roscoe Ware and Dr. David Lochridge Ware, in honor of their mother, Frances Golden Ware, and her parents, John Roscoe Golden and Elise Hay Golden, 2011. |
 Cottonwoods (1935) By Bert Geer Phillips (American, 1868-1956), oil on panel. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Elizabeth (Bettina) Ware Hennessy, Dr. John Roscoe Ware and Dr. David Lochridge Ware, in honor of their mother, Frances Golden Ware, and her parents, John Roscoe Golden and Elise Hay Golden, 2011. |
 White River, Arkansas (1930) By Olin Herman Travis (American, 1888-1975), oil on panel. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Elizabeth (Bettina) Ware Hennessy, Dr. John Roscoe Ware and Dr. David Lochridge Ware, in honor of their mother, Frances Golden Ware, and her parents, John Roscoe Golden and Elise Hay Golden, 2011. |
 A Blue Bonnet Field (1921) By Robert Julian Onderdonk (American, 1882-1922), oil on canvas. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Elizabeth (Bettina) Ware Hennessy, Dr. John Roscoe Ware and Dr. David Lochridge Ware, in honor of their mother, Frances Golden Ware, and her parents, John Roscoe Golden and Elise Hay Golden, 2011. |
 Prairie in Morning (1920) By Frank Reaugh (American, 1860-1945), pastel on grit paper. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Elizabeth (Bettina) Ware Hennessy, Dr. John Roscoe Ware and Dr. David Lochridge Ware, in honor of their mother, Frances Golden Ware, and her parents, John Roscoe Golden and Elise Hay Golden, 2011. |
 Prairie in Evening (1920) By Frank Reaugh (American, 1860-1945), pastel on grit paper. University Art Collection, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Elizabeth (Bettina) Ware Hennessy, Dr. John Roscoe Ware and Dr. David Lochridge Ware, in honor of their mother, Frances Golden Ware, and her parents, John Roscoe Golden and Elise Hay Golden, 2011. |
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