DALLAS, TX.- In a good way, “Texas art” has always been hard to define, and this is true of Texas-based artists as well. Texas artists from the past and present don't fit into tidy categories, nor have they wanted to, and the kinds of art made in Texas — landscape, abstract, figurative, conceptual, self-taught — puts it in conversation with both the history of art and the current moment. This season is a time for both gift-giving and collection-building, in its December 14 Texas Art Signature® Auction Heritage will showcase historical, Modern and Contemporary Texas-made artworks in a range of price points from some of the Lone Star state’s most celebrated artists, many of whose names resonate well beyond the Red River: David Bates, Julian Onderdonk, Billy Hassell, G. Harvey, William Lewis Lester, Luis Jiménez and more.

“This auction offers a lovely and thoughtful selection of works from a full range of great Texas talent,” says Atlee Phillips, Heritage's Director of Texas Art. “There are so many opportunities for every kind of Texas art collector and every kind of budget. Heritage is always pleased and proud to work with such fantastic works from our home region."

Heritage has seen some wonderful results with the works of one of Texas’ favorite sons, David Bates, and this auction also presents a handful of his gems including, starring as the cover of the auction’s catalog, this fabulous woodcut from 2007 titled White Roses. “Since his recent retirement, Bates’ works have become even more sought after by collectors,” says Phillips. “We’re pleased to be offering nine works by David Bates this season from throughout the artist's oeuvre.”

Bates is joined in this auction by another Texan favorite that Heritage has had notable recent success with, Julian Onderdonk. His 1909 painting Sunny Mornings Southwest Texas is replete with the artist’s hallmark careful brushwork, extended vista and close observation of the dry, warm feel of a central Texas landscape. Splitting the difference in eras along the Texas art timeline is this mid-century 1959 painting by one of the storied “Dallas Nine,” William Lewis Lester, titled Ship Channel. As with the best of his works, here his dynamic, shifting-perspective scene that combines seascape and landscape is both a rebuke of traditional painting and yet wholly indebted to it.

And David Bates’ contemporary, Billy Hassell, has a particularly juicy painting in this auction titled Divination, from 1991. Three coyotes and a jackrabbit inhabit a timeless myth that the artist has written about: “I chose the title DIVINATION for this painting to suggest a symbolic search for water as a symbol of the source and wellspring of Life. The coyotes (tricksters) represent the tricky complexities of physical connection and the jackrabbit represents fertility … This [painting] represents the hope of redemption and the hope of finding water.”

The above-mentioned works are marquee pieces by our preeminent history makers, but the auction also offers works by our biggest artists that won’t break a budget. A spiritual sibling of the above Onderdonk is William A. Slaughter’s intimate and charismatic painting Texas Snow. Like Onderdonk (the father of the Texas bluebonnet painting), Slaughter was renowned for his remarkable ability to capture the tranquil beauty of the Texas landscape in his signature style. “His portfolio is predominantly comprised of vibrant landscapes teeming with bluebonnets, a Texas staple flower, often presented under expansive, clear blue skies,” says Phillips. Cindi Holt, a self-taught artist based in Fort Worth, is known for her intuitive approach to painting, as showcased in her oil-on-Masonite Butterflies are Free, in a scene cheekily dominated by two vigilant cardinals.Notes Phillips, “Holt's paintings have graced prestigious holiday cards and are showcased in public murals including commissions for Central Market and the George W. Bush Presidential Library.”

Also hitting a collector sweet spot is a lithograph of one of Luis Jiménez’s most recognizable images of a man and woman embracing on a dance floor; his Texas Walz, from 1985, is a fantastic example of the artist’s prowess with movement, muscle, and a charming eroticism that can charge his work. (It joins three other Jiménez lots in the auction, including one of the artist’s famous takes on his beloved El Paso alligators). One of Jiménez’s beloved and irreverent contemporaries, also no longer with us, is Bob Schrope "Daddy-O" Wade, who is represented in this auction by this 1999 work Two Rows of Cowgirls. Wade, a pioneer of Texas Cosmic Cowboy counterculture, was a master of using found materials and this print is no exception.

While not all Texas art is Western Art, there is, of course, some exceptional Western Art that is also Texan. On Dec. 14 Heritage offers some significant paintings that epitomize the rugged and enduring disposition of a great Western art tradition — a tradition that captures both the sublime landscape and the people who worked it. G. Harvey is one of the most prominent artists in this category, and his Gift of Rain depicts a couple of cowboys on horseback riding under skies that have opened wide. In contrast, Fred Darge’s horseback rider seems to be still waiting on his rain in Rain Clouds (Ed Love Ranch Sierra Blanca, Texas). “Darge's work is a dynamic narrative of the Southwest, blending the artistic precision of a formally trained painter with the lived experience of a cowboy,” says Phillips.

Western greats include Dawson Dawson-Watson’s painting Blooming Cacti. The England-born artist hada distinguished career on both sides of the Atlantic and is particularly celebrated for his contributions to landscape painting in Texas and the American West. His legacy is closely tied to his Texas scenes, particularly his fascination with the state's distinctive desert flora as demonstrated in this work. And Robert William Wood’s sweetly refreshing April in Texas is as fine a bluebonnet painting that a lover of Texas and Texas art could hope to find. “It was in Texas, a state celebrated for its vast, diverse terrain, that Wood refined his signature style,” says Philips of the famous landscape painter. “Wood's bluebonnets became a leitmotif in his paintings, with each depiction highlighting the radiant beauty of Texas's state flower and capturing the magic of Texas spring in full bloom.”