Collision: The Contemporary Art Scene in Houston, 1972–1985Winner, 2019 Ron Tyler Award for Best Illustrated Book, sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) In this expansive and vigorous survey of the Houston art scene of the 1970s and 1980s, author Pete Gershon describes the city’s emergence as a locus for the arts, fueled by a boom in oil prices and by the arrival of several catalyzing figures, including museum director James Harithas and sculptor James Surls. Harithas was a fierce champion for Texan artists during his tenure as the director of the Contemporary Arts Museum–Houston (CAM). He put Texas artists on the map, but his renegade style proved too confrontational for the museum’s benefactors, and after four years, he wore out his welcome. After Harithas’s departure from the CAM, the chainsaw-wielding Surls established the Lawndale Annex as a largely unsupervised outpost of the University of Houston art department. Inside this dirty, cavernous warehouse, a new generation of Houston artists discovered their identities and began to flourish. Both the CAM and the Lawndale Annex set the scene for the emergence of small, downtown, artist-run spaces, including Studio One, the Center for Art and Performance, Midtown Arts Center, and DiverseWorks. Finally, in 1985, the Museum of Fine Arts presented Fresh Paint: The Houston School, a nationally publicized survey of work by Houston painters. The exhibition capped an era of intensive artistic development and suggested that the city was about to be recognized, along with New York and Los Angeles, as a major center for art-making activity. Drawing upon primary archival materials, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and over sixty interviews with significant figures, Gershon presents a narrative that preserves and interweaves the stories and insights of those who transformed the Houston art scene into the vibrant community that it is today. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 Culture on a Corner | 9 |
2 Art Came to Houston | 16 |
3 Lefty | 50 |
4 10 | 68 |
5 A New Direction | 80 |
6 Jim | 86 |
7 12Texas | 93 |
19 Surls | 251 |
20 Brothers and Sisters | 259 |
21 Pow Wow | 265 |
22 1980 | 278 |
23 Sumfest The Panther and the Art Guys | 291 |
24 Wobbling | 305 |
25 A Houston Art Center | 316 |
26 Collision | 336 |
8 Museum Quality | 107 |
9 The Art of Texas | 118 |
10 Radical Chic | 132 |
11 Intermission | 142 |
12 Rebirth | 160 |
13 Climax | 171 |
14 The Womans Caucus | 193 |
15 The Dinner Party | 211 |
16 Mimi Versus the Museum | 223 |
17 A Room of Ones Own | 233 |
18 Fire | 243 |
27 Marzio | 357 |
28 Fresh Paint | 362 |
29 Dynamic Pioneers | 375 |
30 A Houston School | 390 |
31 The Big Show | 409 |
Epilogue | 421 |
A Houston Timeline 197285 | 427 |
Notes | 445 |
459 | |
463 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract Adler Agee American Art Art Center Archives art scene artwork August Barbara Rose began Bert Blaffer building called CAM’s canvas Charlotte Moser Chicago city’s collection Contemporary Arts Museum Courtesy curator Dallas David Derek Boshier Dick Wray director DiverseWorks Dominique de Menil Dorothy Hood downtown Earl Staley exhibition February Fondren Library Frank Frank Martin Fresh Paint Galbreth Gallery Harithas hMRc Houston art Houston artists Houston Chronicle Houston Post Houston Public Libraries Houston Records inches installation James Surls Jim Harithas John Alexander Johnson Kalil Lawndale Lawndale Annex Lawndale Art Center Long Jr Lynn Randolph MacAgy Mel Chin Menil Michael Mimi Crossley MS690 Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston opening Organized painter Photo photographs Quoted Rice University Richard Stout Robert Ron Hoover says Schimmel sculpture show’s space studio Surls’s Suzanne Paul told University of Houston who’d women Woodson Research Center wrote York