CLARA MCDONALD WILLIAMSON (American, 1875-1976). Plowing the Field. Pastel and charcoal on paper laid on masonite. 23 x ...

Description

CLARA MCDONALD WILLIAMSON (American, 1875-1976)
Plowing the Field
Pastel and charcoal on paper laid on masonite
23 x 29 inches (58.4 x 73.7 cm)
Signed lower right: Clara McDonald Williamson

Known as "Aunt Clara" or "the Grandma Moses of Texas," Williamson was born in Iredell, Texas. She attended school infrequently, but taught herself to type and take dictation. She married John Williamson, an Iredell dry-goods merchant. In 1920, the Williamsons moved to Dallas, where they ran a boarding house and a dry-goods store. Following her husband's death in 1943, the 68-year-old Williamson began sketching in pencil, charcoal, and watercolor, and took evening painting classes at the Dallas Museum School. Encouraged to develop her own style, she began creating "memory paintings" of her childhood and life in and around Iredell. Her naïve style caught the attention of Jerry Bywaters, then director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (later the Dallas Museum of Art), and Donald Vogel, an artist and dealer who promoted Williamson's work.
Williamson exhibited her paintings in numerous competitive exhibitions throughout the state winning prizes and had a solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in 1948. She was represented in the 1950 exhibition "American Painting Today" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and her work was included in three traveling exhibitions organized by the Smithsonian Institution. In 1966, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art organized a retrospective of her work that traveled to the Oklahoma City; the McNey Art Museum, San Antonio; and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. In 1969, a documentary film of Williamson's career was aired on national television. Her work is included in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art; the Wichita Art Museum; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.


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