Alumni Spotlight: Mel Auberty

Mel Auberty (B.F.A. ’79) is this week’s featured alum in our new Alumni Spotlight series for the This Week at Meadows e-newsletter. Each week, a different Meadows alum will be highlighted for their accomplishments post-graduation.

SMU Meadows has long fostered artists who pair creative excellence with a strong sense of purpose. Mel Auberty, a Division of Art alum and nationally recognized equine painter, exemplifies that tradition through a career that bridges art and advocacy. Known for her iconic blue horse paintings collected by both private and corporate entities throughout the U.S., Auberty is now preparing for a major solo exhibition that brings her artistic vision and animal welfare mission together.

Auberty studied painting at Meadows during the 1970s, a period she describes as both demanding and formative. She trained under working artists and published art historians such as Alessandra Comini, DeForrest Judd, Larry Scholder, Mary Vernon, Steve Wilder, and Dan Wingren, whose curriculum and studios reflected a classical style of teaching in which students were expected to be fluent in a variety of styles and media.

“Due to the rigor of the curriculum and the no-holds-barred critiques, one had to develop a thoughtful, critical eye, and be willing to defend one’s work,” explains Auberty of her experience in the program. “It was character building and created in me a well-rounded knowledge of my capabilities and the guts to continue as a painter.”

After graduating from the art program at Meadows, Auberty began her career as a graphic designer for American Airlines. She later lived and ran galleries in both New York and Los Angeles before returning to Dallas in 1992 and recommitting herself fully to painting. Inspired by her family’s Hill Country ranch, she began focusing on animals and the natural world, developing a fascination with horses and the color blue—both of which became signatures that have since defined her work.



Auberty’s expressive and powerful theme of blue horses will be on full display in her upcoming solo exhibition, Year of the Horse, opening February 17 at Gallery One Two Three in Dallas’s Design District. Timed with the Lunar New Year, the exhibition celebrates the return of the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac as well as the animal’s spirit, strength and symbolism.

“I was born in the Year of the Horse, and somehow that long connection has led me to rescue equines,” she says. “My family ranch near Glen Rose, TX, has become home to Blue Horse Sanctuary, a nonprofit foundation that is dedicated to giving senior, injured and abused horses a safe place to live out their lives.”

The exhibition, which will feature 30 new paintings, six bronze sculptures, drawings, woodcut prints, and even a video installation, marks a culmination of more than 25 years of equine-focused work. All proceeds will benefit the Blue Horse Sanctuary, making every collector a donor as well. Through Auberty’s art and advocacy, she continues to embody the Meadows tradition of artists who lead with both craft and conscience.

Learn more about the Division of Art here.