No collection of Texas or Southwestern Art is complete without work by the “Dean of Texas Painters,” the western artist Frank Reaugh (1860-1945). Reaugh began sketching West Texas in 1883 after studying at the St. Louis Museum and School of Fine Art and at the Academie Julian in Paris, France. Using pastels and paints to capture the stark realities of life in the Southwest, Reaugh had a particular fascination with the longhorn steer, the cowboy, and the landscape of the Great Plains.
His greatest success came between 1890 and 1915, during which time he exhibited works at the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904. At the turn of the century, Reaugh was a fixture in the Dallas art community as both a teacher and artist. He helped establish the Dallas Art Society in 1900.
More than 700 of Reaugh’s works are displayed on a rotating basis in the Frank Reaugh gallery at PPHM.