JERRY BYWATERS (American, 1906-1989). The Giralda and the Cathedral. Oil on canvas. 26 x 22 inches (66.0 x 55.9 cm). Sig...

Description

JERRY BYWATERS (American, 1906-1989)
The Giralda and the Cathedral
Oil on canvas
26 x 22 inches (66.0 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower right: Gerald / Bywaters

PROVENANCE:
Milton Brown, Dallas;
By descent to Kathryn Johnson.

Jerry Bywaters was a leading member of the early-modernist group of artists known as the "Dallas Nine." He grew up in Dallas, attended Southern Methodist University, and studied under Olin Travis and Thomas M. Still at the Dallas Art Institute. He built a studio in 1928 and became a leader in the regionalism movement in Texas. Best known for his still-lifes, landscapes, and portraits, Bywaters produced a large body of work, while holding positions as an art critic, art editor and contributor, teacher, curator of numerous exhibitions, and served as Director of the Dallas Museum of Art. Jerry Bywaters's work is in many Texas collections including the Dallas Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Giralda and the Cathedral is an early work painted in the 1920s, from sketches made following a trip to Spain. It is a lovely painting with a hazy, impressionistic style, soft pastel palette, composition, and atmospheric quality of the light that are directly related to the series of paintings that Monet did of the Rouen Cathedral. Indeed, if not for the trees only the façades and towers of buildings would be different from Monet's cathedrals. Later, Bywaters would reject Impressionism and embrace Realism and Modernism, but this painting offers important insight into the early development of one of the most important Texas Regionalists.



More information about Bywaters, Gerald Williamson "Jerry". See also: Gerald Williamson "Jerry" Bywaters Artist.

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