By: Gabriel Diego Delgado
Jay Hester: TEXAS – “Stories of the Land”
Acclaimed
Texas artist, Jay Hester, is a rugged cowboy type that has called Boerne, Texas
home for over twenty-five years. His rough and tough bearded mountain man
appearance can be misleading, as Jay has been most instrumental in helping
carve out the niche known as the Boerne Professional Artists. Hester, known for his credibility and
integrity throughout the city and with other local organizations, is often
regarded as the “Godfather” of the Boerne art community. His decades as a
successful Native American and western painter in New Mexico and Texas has
earned him high accolades, but his commissioned bronze sculptures at USAA in
San Antonio, The Woodlands in Houston, Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus
Christi, Boerne's Veteran's Park, Fredericksburg's Markt Platz, and the Texas
A&M Galveston campus have placed him a cut above the rest.
Hester has
also helped place his residence in the Texas Hill Country on the artistic map
by his continued and successful involvement in several national art shows, like
the Phippen Western Art Show & Sale in Arizona, Sculpture in the Park in
Loveland, Colorado, and The Indian Market of Santa Fe. He has exhibited his work nationally at many
major southwestern art galleries, mentored students who have gone on to become
professional artists themselves, as well as successfully operated his own
gallery, Highland House in Boerne, for over a decade. His attitude, mannerisms, and straightforward
and demanding personality show why and how he has been able to sustain such a
unique career in the western art genre for so long.
A former
student of the famed Howard Terpning, Hester now moves freely in his own glow
of importance. This monumental Texas
artist is sought out by major western art collectors, and is growing in
prominence, but remains humble when compared to the man whose work he has
admired for so long. Hester is now excited to be working on a new body of
artwork, one that will bring to life some forgotten stories of the Texas Hill Country.
Jay Hester: Texas
–“Stories of the Land,”
his first solo exhibition in over 20 years, will be held at J.R. Mooney
Galleries in Boerne, opening October 7th & 8th,
2016. The preparations for this
exhibition has him in the saddle again, meeting with local historians,
sketching compositional drawings and excitedly gathering materials to help
piece together overlooked moments in Texas history and artistically articulate
it to the world in only a way a western artist can.
Hester now
works out of a picturesque art studio in Boerne, Texas, complete with a reclaimed
eight-foot oval stained glass door, made from an ox cart wheel, portraying an
artistically embellished cow skull with horns.
Built by the artist, this compound sits seconds away from the
picturesque and serene Cibolo Creek in Boerne.
Quick to give you a tour of the small “sleepy” bedroom community outside
San Antonio, Hester is the City of Boerne’s unofficial art ambassador, having
been commissioned by the city for outdoor sculptures, at times working with and
within various city departments, and chairing many organizational boards.
With
Hester’s “grab the world by the horns” mentality, he has been working
feverishly on producing over a dozen large and medium size oil paintings, which
pay homage to his beloved Texas Hill Country.
Current research includes the legendary Dr. Herff of Boerne, Comanche
raids at Linnville, ambushes at Plum Creek, the camel depot of Camp Verde in
Centerpoint, Texas Ranger skirmishes at Bandera Pass, and Native American
settlements around Little Joshua Creek, only to name a few. Combining historically accurate events with his
signature artistic aesthetic, Hester is working through nostalgic western tales
as he gives us his own visual appreciation of regional accounts which are
overlaid with complex, yet serene ballad sensibilities reflective of the Old West’s
heydays.
Bringing western and Native
American collectors to Boerne from all over the southwest, TEXAS- “Stories of the Land”
will be the premier fall 2016 art exhibition to attend. Hester will be on hand to discuss the
historical documentations that have influenced the new artwork, as well as his
signature western aesthetic.
Imperative to this exhibition is the painting
depicting the famous cataract surgery that Dr. Herff supposedly performed on a
Comanche Chief, saving his eyesight and building trust among the early German
settlers of Boerne and the Comanche Indians. This legendary act of courage will
be portrayed in a 48” x 60” masterpiece showing the importance of the doctor’s
innovative surgical discoveries and techniques.
“Dr. Herff was one of the founders, in 1853,
of the Bexar County Medical Society and Texas State Medical Association (now
the Texas Medical Association) and of the West Texas Medical Association in
1876. He also served on the Texas State
Board of Medical Examiners. Most
notably, Herff was a co-founder of the city’s first private infirmary in 1869,
operated by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. Santa Rosa Infirmary became Santa Rosa
Hospital.” Source: San Antonio Express writer, Jessica
Belasco.
Join J.R. Mooney Galleries of
Fine Art - Boerne in October 2016, as they celebrate the great history of Texas
with Jay Hester’s TEXAS - “Stories of the Land” exhibition.
By: Gabriel Diego Delgado
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/national-cowboy-artist-jay-hester-solo-exhibition-hit-delgado
http://www.examiner.com/article/jay-hester-cowboy-artist-s-nationally-acclaimed-exhibition-to-hit-texas
www.jrmooneygalleries.com
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