DALLAS, TX.-The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) presents Lone Star Legacy: The Barrett Collection of Early Texas Art, in the Lamont Gallery and remaining on view through the fall.

“With the generosity of Dallasites Nona and Richard Barrett, the Museum’s already important collection has been transformed into one of the finest assemblages of early Texas art in any museum,” said John R. Lane, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “The Barretts’ great civic commitment and cultural generosity not only benefit the DMA but bring Texas regionalism to higher national prominence.”

The Barrett Collection encompasses late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century works by landscape painters Hermann Lungkwitz, José Arpa y Perea, and Dawson Dawson-Watson—artists for whom museum-quality work is virtually non-existent on the current market. Additionally, exquisite paintings by Frank Reaugh, Edward G. Eisenlohr, and Julian Onderdonk will enrich the Museum’s current holdings of these well-regarded artists.

At the same time, the Barrett gift provides for important expansion into the later careers of several of the Dallas Nine, particularly Everett Spruce and William Lester, to now offer broad retrospective coverage of the artists who helped put Texas regionalism on the art historical map.

In one of its most important moves, the Barrett compilation bridges the gap between early Texas art and contemporary art with the gift of two works by Forrest Bess, one of the most important and enigmatic abstract artists working in the state after the Second World War.

“Starting in the late 1980s, the Barretts began to build what would become a pioneering collection of contemporary Texas art, then largely under-appreciated,” said William Rudolph, The Pauline Gill Sullivan Associate Curator of American Art at the Dallas Museum of Art and curator of the forthcoming exhibition. “At the same time as they developed a sophisticated understanding of the art of their own moment, the Barretts also explored the state’s artistic foundations, well in advance of the current vogue for these works, and carefully selected particularly fine examples of leading artists for this celebrated collection.”