Survival of the Fittest captures the clarity and heat of the West Texas landscape as well as the precarious existence of its inhabitants. In this meticulously detailed scene, a roadrunner and a snake face off in a climate beset by death and heat. Their combat amid a broken skull and parched cacti, seen in a close-up view, offers an abridged version of the precariousness of desert life. In a face-off with the snake, the roadrunner has momentarily forgotten its prey, the grasshopper, who may be the ultimate survivor in that harsh environment.

Adapted from

• Bonnie Pitman, ed., "Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection," (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 274.
• DMA Label copy (1944.13), n.d.