Porfirio Salinas
Encyclopedia
Porfirio Salinas was an Early Texas landscape painter who is recognized for his depictions of the Texas Hill Country
in the springtime. He was one of the first Mexican-American artists to become nationally recognized for his paintings. He was described by Time Magazine as United States President Lyndon Baines Johnson's favorite artist. Works by Salinas are in the Texas State Capitol
, the Texas Governor's Mansion
and in a number of museums including the Witte Museum
in San Antonio, Texas
and the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
.
. He came from a family of Mexican-American tenant farmers, his father Porfirio G. Salinas and his mother Clara G. Chavez Salinas leaving the farm for San Antonio when Porfirio was a child. Salinas was a precocious talent who drew and painted from the time he was a small boy and received encouragement from his teachers. He had little formal education and left school when he was young in order to work in an art supply store. When he was fifteen he met the English-born landscape artist Robert William Wood
(1889-1979) at the store. Salinas went to work in Wood's studio in 1925, where he learned the basics of being a professional painter. He stretched Wood's canvasses, learned to frame paintings, how to mix paints and how to prepare canvas under Wood's supervision. Wood was a very capable businessman and the younger painter learned how to sell and market his art from the English painter. Salinas accompanied Wood and the Spanish-born artist and teacher José Arpa
(1858-1952) on sketching trips to the hills and valleys surrounding San Antonio where they painted blooming wildflowers in the spring and the Texas Red Oak in the fall. With his talent and hard work he was soon capable of professional work.
, the state flower, sold to tourists by the artists and galleries in San Antonio, Texas
. In 1939, he began working with the art dealer Dewey Bradford (1896-1985), who sold paintings, frames and art supplies in the state capital of Austin, Texas
.
to being Vice President, Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson (1912–2007) purchased a large French-style chateau from the socialite and heiress Perle Mesta
(1889–1975). They decorated the house with French antiques and tapestries that were already in the home, but the foyer was hung with Texas wildflower paintings by Porfirio Salinas. Lady Bird Johnson
(1912–2007) was quoted as saying of them that "I want to see them when I open the door, to remind me of where I come from." After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
, Lyndon Johnson became President and his Salinas paintings were brought with him into the White House. He told the Washington press that Porfirio Salinas was "his favorite artist." President Johnson also presented a Salinas painting to President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz
of Mexico
as an official gift from the United States. The patronage of the President was a tremendous boost to the artist's career and during the 1960s, his work sold briskly for ever higher prices. The Johnsons' Salinas paintings remain in the collection of the LBJ Ranch today and President and Lady Bird Johnson were both advocates and admirers of wildflowers. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson will always remain linked to the subject of wildflowers because of her Beautify America campaign and the Highway Beautification Act
which was passed by the United States Congress
in 1965. As part of that effort, many miles of Texas roadsides were seeded with Texas Bluebonnets, Lupinus texensis
, the flowers that Porfirio Salinas is known for painting.
and of arid West Texas
. Salinas made trips to Mexico and painted rural Mexican villages and the volcanoes that are south of Mexico City
. For Mexican-American audiences, Salinas painted small scenes of Bullfights, Cockfights and Mexican Fandango
s.
Texas Hill Country
The Texas Hill Country is a vernacular term applied to a region of Central Texas featuring tall rugged hills consisting of thin layers of soil atop limestone or granite. It also includes the Llano Uplift and the second largest granite monadnock in the United States, Enchanted Rock, which is located...
in the springtime. He was one of the first Mexican-American artists to become nationally recognized for his paintings. He was described by Time Magazine as United States President Lyndon Baines Johnson's favorite artist. Works by Salinas are in the Texas State Capitol
Texas State Capitol
The Texas State Capitol is located in Austin, Texas, and is the fourth building to be the house of Texas government in Austin. It houses the chambers of the Texas Legislature and the office of the governor of Texas. It was designed originally during 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers, and was...
, the Texas Governor's Mansion
Texas Governor's Mansion
The Texas Governor's Mansion, also known simply as Governor's Mansion is a historic home for the Governor of Texas in downtown Austin, Texas...
and in a number of museums including the Witte Museum
Witte Museum
The Witte Museum, established in 1926 under the charter of the San Antonio Museum Association, is located adjacent to Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, Texas, on the banks of the source of the San Antonio River. It is dedicated to the history, science, and culture of the region. Nearby is the San...
in San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
and the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum is a history museum on the campus of West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, U.S.A., a small city south of Amarillo. The museum's contents are owned and controlled by the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, while West Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M...
.
Early history
Salinas was born on November 6, 1910 near Bastrop, TexasBastrop, Texas
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there are 5340 people in Bastrop, organized into 2034 households and 1336 families. The population density is 734.8 people per square mile . There are 2,239 housing units at an average density of 308.1 per square mile...
. He came from a family of Mexican-American tenant farmers, his father Porfirio G. Salinas and his mother Clara G. Chavez Salinas leaving the farm for San Antonio when Porfirio was a child. Salinas was a precocious talent who drew and painted from the time he was a small boy and received encouragement from his teachers. He had little formal education and left school when he was young in order to work in an art supply store. When he was fifteen he met the English-born landscape artist Robert William Wood
Robert William Wood
Robert William Wood was an American landscape painter. He was born in England, emigrated to the United States and rose to prominence in the 1950s with the sales of millions of his color reproductions...
(1889-1979) at the store. Salinas went to work in Wood's studio in 1925, where he learned the basics of being a professional painter. He stretched Wood's canvasses, learned to frame paintings, how to mix paints and how to prepare canvas under Wood's supervision. Wood was a very capable businessman and the younger painter learned how to sell and market his art from the English painter. Salinas accompanied Wood and the Spanish-born artist and teacher José Arpa
José Arpa
José Arpa y Perea, 1858-1952, was an artist of Spanish birth who worked in Spain, Mexico, and Texas. Born in Carmona, Spain, he studied under Eduardo Cano de la Peña at the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville, where he won the Rome Prize three times, allowing him to study in Rome...
(1858-1952) on sketching trips to the hills and valleys surrounding San Antonio where they painted blooming wildflowers in the spring and the Texas Red Oak in the fall. With his talent and hard work he was soon capable of professional work.
Professional career
Porfirio Salinas began painting professionally in 1930, when he was twenty years old. His early work was influenced by his mentor Robert Wood's paintings. He painted many scenes of Texas BluebonnetsLupinus texensis
Lupinus texensis is a species of lupine which is endemic to Texas. With other related species of lupines also called bluebonnets, it is the state flower of Texas....
, the state flower, sold to tourists by the artists and galleries in San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
. In 1939, he began working with the art dealer Dewey Bradford (1896-1985), who sold paintings, frames and art supplies in the state capital of Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
.
National recognition
While Salinas sold his work steadily, by 1960 he was known primarily to Texas collectors and tourists who visited San Antonio. In 1961, this changed rapidly with the election of his collector Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973) to the Vice-Presidency of the United States. With his ascension from the United States SenateUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
to being Vice President, Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson (1912–2007) purchased a large French-style chateau from the socialite and heiress Perle Mesta
Perle Mesta
Perle Skirvin Mesta was an American socialite, political hostess, and U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg ....
(1889–1975). They decorated the house with French antiques and tapestries that were already in the home, but the foyer was hung with Texas wildflower paintings by Porfirio Salinas. Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...
(1912–2007) was quoted as saying of them that "I want to see them when I open the door, to remind me of where I come from." After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, Lyndon Johnson became President and his Salinas paintings were brought with him into the White House. He told the Washington press that Porfirio Salinas was "his favorite artist." President Johnson also presented a Salinas painting to President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz Bolaños served as the President of Mexico from 1964 to 1970.- Political career :Díaz Ordaz was born in San Andrés Chalchícomula . His father, Ramón Díaz Ordaz Redonet, worked as an accountant, while his mother, Sabina Bolaños Cacho de Díaz Ordaz, worked as a school teacher...
of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
as an official gift from the United States. The patronage of the President was a tremendous boost to the artist's career and during the 1960s, his work sold briskly for ever higher prices. The Johnsons' Salinas paintings remain in the collection of the LBJ Ranch today and President and Lady Bird Johnson were both advocates and admirers of wildflowers. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson will always remain linked to the subject of wildflowers because of her Beautify America campaign and the Highway Beautification Act
Highway Beautification Act
In the United States, highway beautification is the subject of the Highway Beautification Act, passed in the Senate on September 16, 1965 and in the U.S. House of Representatives on October 8, 1965, and signed by the President on October 22, 1965...
which was passed by the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
in 1965. As part of that effort, many miles of Texas roadsides were seeded with Texas Bluebonnets, Lupinus texensis
Lupinus texensis
Lupinus texensis is a species of lupine which is endemic to Texas. With other related species of lupines also called bluebonnets, it is the state flower of Texas....
, the flowers that Porfirio Salinas is known for painting.
Death and posthumous reputation
Porfirio Salinas was recognized by the city of his birth, Bastrop, Texas in 1960, when he was fifty years old. He had a solo exhibition at the Witte Museum in San Antonio in 1962. His work was widely published by the New York Graphic Society, which added to his national reputation. In 1967 his work illustrated a book titled "Bluebonnets and Cactus" that was published in Austin. Salinas died on April 18 of 1973, after a brief illness. He was memorialized in the City of Austin by Porfirio Salinas Day in 1973 and Ruth Goddard wrote a book titled Porfirio Salinas that was published two years after his death. There is a Porfirio Salinas Art Exhibition each year in Bastrop, Texas that is held in the artist's honor. In celebration of the centennial of Porfirio Salinas' birth the Witte Museum has mounted an exhibition titled Porfirio Salinas: Painting South Texas that opened on October 16, 2010 and that will run to March 20, 2011.Artistic production
The professional career of Porfirio Salinas stretched to more than forty years and according to the art historian Jeffrey Morseburg, he is estimated to have painted between two and three thousand works during that time. His work is divided among a number of subjects, but Hill Country landscapes of the Texas Bluebonnets predominate. The Bluebonnet landscape has remained eternally popular with both collectors of historic Texas paintings and contemporary artists. Salinas also painted many scenes of Texas Red Oak trees in the autumn and Prickly pear cactus. There were also scenes of the Texas desert in the Texas PanhandleTexas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east...
and of arid West Texas
West Texas
West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....
. Salinas made trips to Mexico and painted rural Mexican villages and the volcanoes that are south of Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. For Mexican-American audiences, Salinas painted small scenes of Bullfights, Cockfights and Mexican Fandango
Fandango
Fandango is a lively couple's dance, usually in triple metre, traditionally accompanied by guitars and castanets or hand-clapping . Fandango can both be sung and danced. Sung fandango is usually bipartite: it has an instrumental introduction followed by "variaciones"...
s.
Personal life
Porfirio Salinas married Maria Bonillas, a Mexican woman who worked for the Mexican National Railways, in San Antonio in 1943. They had a single child, Christina Maria Salinas, who was born in 1945. Maria Bonillas Salinas helped manage her husband's career. The Salinas home and studio was located at 2723 Buena Vista Street in San Antonio. It consists of a small stone home with a detached studio.Public collections
- Panhandle–Plains Historical Museum
- Stark Museum of ArtStark Museum of ArtThe Stark Museum of Art, in Orange, Texas, houses one of the nation’s most significant collections of American Western art. The Western Art collection conveys the artistic interpretation of the western region over two centuries....
, Orange, Texas - Texas State CapitolTexas State CapitolThe Texas State Capitol is located in Austin, Texas, and is the fourth building to be the house of Texas government in Austin. It houses the chambers of the Texas Legislature and the office of the governor of Texas. It was designed originally during 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers, and was...
, Austin, Texas - Texas Governor's MansionTexas Governor's MansionThe Texas Governor's Mansion, also known simply as Governor's Mansion is a historic home for the Governor of Texas in downtown Austin, Texas...
, Austin, Texas - R.W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana
- Amarillo High SchoolAmarillo High SchoolAmarillo High School is a school located in the city of Amarillo, Texas, United States, in the Amarillo Independent School District.- History :...
, Amarillo, Texas - Sangre de Cristo Art Center, Pueblo, Colorado
- Texas A&M UniversityTexas A&M UniversityTexas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
, College Station, Texas - Modern Art Museum of Fort WorthModern Art Museum of Fort WorthThe Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth was first granted a Charter from the State of Texas in 1892 as the "Fort Worth Public Library and Art Gallery", evolving through several name changes and different facilities in Fort Worth...
, Ft. Worth, Texas - Price-Daniel House, Austin, Texas
- Rayburn Library and Museum, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
- Witte MuseumWitte MuseumThe Witte Museum, established in 1926 under the charter of the San Antonio Museum Association, is located adjacent to Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, Texas, on the banks of the source of the San Antonio River. It is dedicated to the history, science, and culture of the region. Nearby is the San...
, Austin, Texas - Lyndon Baines Johnson RanchLyndon B. Johnson National Historical ParkLyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in central Texas about 50 miles west of Austin in the Texas Hill Country. The park protects the birthplace, home, ranch and final resting place of Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States...
, Johnson City, Texas
See also
- American ImpressionismAmerican ImpressionismImpressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
- Robert William WoodRobert William WoodRobert William Wood was an American landscape painter. He was born in England, emigrated to the United States and rose to prominence in the 1950s with the sales of millions of his color reproductions...
- Lyndon Baines Johnson
- Lady Bird JohnsonLady Bird JohnsonClaudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...
- Highway Beautification ActHighway Beautification ActIn the United States, highway beautification is the subject of the Highway Beautification Act, passed in the Senate on September 16, 1965 and in the U.S. House of Representatives on October 8, 1965, and signed by the President on October 22, 1965...
Reference works
- Jeffrey Morseburg, Porfirio Salinas and the Hill Country Landscape, 2010
- Early Texas Art in the Witte Museum, Witte Museum, 1968
- Ruth Goddard, Bastrop's Porfirio Salinas, Brochure, Undated
- Ruth Goddard, Porfirio Salinas, Rock House Press, 1975
- Claudia Feldman, Paintings of the State Flower Range from the Sublime to the Trite, Texas National Press, 2007
- Nanette Richardson, Porfirio Salinas, Online Biography
- Time Magazine, The Home: Ormes & The Man, Friday, November 17, 1961
External links
- http://www.porfiriosalinas.org/signatures.html Porfirio Salinas.Org, Educational Web Site
- http://www.robertwood.net/index.html Website Devoted to Salinas' Mentor Robert W. Wood
- http://www.lone-star.net/wildflowers/ Lone Star Wildflowers
- http://www.wittemuseum.org/ Witte Museum, San Antonio, Site of Porfirio Salinas: Painting South Texas
- http://www.panhandleplains.org/ Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas
- http://www.rwnaf.org/ R.W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana
- http://www.texasbluebonnetpainters.com Texas Bluebonnet Painters Web Site