CANYON, TX.- As Texas evolved from an almost exclusively agricultural economy in the latter part of the 19th century and became more industrialized, Texas artists began depicting the urbanization of the state. Images of this genre will be displayed in Urban Texas: Changing Images of an Evolving State from September 29, 2007, through February 17, 2008, in the Foran Gallery at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.

Interest in early Texas art has continued to grow causing a number of urban images by Texas artists to be found and made public, especially as the more agrarian and rural images by Texas artists have been acquired to private and corporate collections.

From European-immigrant artists such as Hermann Lungkwitz in central Texas in the 1860s, to Julius Stockfleth in Galveston in 1900, to San Antonio artists such as Theodore Gentilz and Jose Arpa in the 1920s, to the Dallas Regionalists in the 1930s, and the Moderns in Fort Worth, Denton, and Houston in the 1940s and 1950s, Texas artists have explored the rise and decline of towns and cities across the state on paper, panel, and canvas.