Historic Highlights: Reaugh became ‘dean of Texas painters’

Some of the greatest Western artists in American history were not born in the West. One example is Frank Reaugh, an Illinois native whose paintings are found in collections across Texas today.

Over 200 paintings by Reaugh, who was born in Jacksonville on Dec. 29, 1860, are held at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. Another 700 of his works are at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.

The last name Reaugh (pronounced Ray) had been shortened by the family from the traditional Irish name of “Castelreaugh.” Frank’s father, George Washington Reaugh, had headed west for California during the Gold Rush.

They remained in Illinois until 1876, when they moved by covered wagon to a farm near Terrell, Texas, east of Dallas. Reaugh later remembered the “illimitable distance” and the Texas “skies that were beautiful, grand, or awe-inspiring.”

There, Reaugh developed his love of art. “I had a liking for drawing in which I was encouraged by my mother,” he later wrote, and examined a book of the anatomy of cattle and sheep “to study their form, the workings of their muscles, and the character and habits, their characteristic spots and markings.” He found that “no animal on earth has the beauty of the Texas steer.”

In 1884, Reaugh enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in St. Louis, followed by study in 1888-89 at the Julien School of Art in Paris. He returned to Texas with a new view of his artistic talent and made it clear that the Plains were his cultural home. Reaugh noted that “other painters…were busy crossing the water to paint the peasantry of the old world, or were satisfied with the hills or coastline of the East … for me, however, the great southwestern cow country had wondrous charm.”

In 1890, the Reaugh family moved to Oak Cliff, south of Dallas. There, Frank’s father, an experienced carpenter, constructed an art studio for his son behind their house. Nicknamed “Ironshed,” Reaugh continued to nurture his talent amid a steady stream of visitors.

In the “Ironshed,” he conducted art classes with stringent admission requirements, while constantly shipping his work around the nation to art academies and exhibitions. His work was displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 as well as the St. Louis World’s Fair 11 years later.

In his spare time, Reaugh led youngsters on nature walks, to “teach observation and to teach young people … to recognize the beauty in their immediate surroundings and to … analyze the reasons for such beauty.” He was known for leading tours on long summer trips into the rugged plains of Texas and New Mexico, finding subjects to sketch. One of his travelers wrote that Reaugh “liked to sleep under the stars far away on the western prairies, far away from man and civilization.”

In 1920, Reaugh acquired a Ford touring car dubbed “The Cicada,” which he retrofitted from a Model T Ford frame. The vehicle became Reaugh’s rolling studio. A rear door of the Cicada could be lowered into a work table, and the vehicle held a 30-gallon water tank with storage for pots, pans, a fireless cooker and supplies.

Daily meals for Reaugh and his traveling companions often consisted of “beans and prunes, prunes and beans, interspersed now and then with chili mush.” Coffee was not allowed, in favor of Postum.

For sketching, Reaugh carried a folding lap easel that he had designed and patented. In addition to art materials, he was a skilled mechanical inventor who designed and patented a rotary pump. Reaugh also expressed his talents in photography, taking several hundred pictures as background for his paintings.

He determined that “a sketch from nature should be a truthful record of things seen, and free from anything else … Nature’s beauty of design is matchless.”

Described as a “true cowboy artist” who focused more on animals and their surroundings than humans, Reaugh produced some 7,000 works in pastels, charcoal sketches, pen and ink drawings and oil paintings.

In 1928-29, Reaugh erected a concrete and stucco art studio, El Sibil, or The Vault, overlooking Lake Cliff Park south of Dallas. In 1937, he donated part of his collection to the University of Texas, one of many beneficiaries of his efforts to give away many possessions. Reaugh died in Dallas on May 6, 1945, and is buried in Terrell.

• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Illinois. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.