In May 1938, sixteen Texas artists met to create the Lone Star Printmakers, a local organization patterned after the Associated American Artists, an art club and gallery established in 1934 in New York City. Like the AAA, the Lone Star Printmakers served the dual purpose of promoting the creation and collecting of prints. From 1939 to 1943, the group held annual exhibitions that showcased the work of its members, a practice which greatly benefited the artists by reducing their individual costs of artistic production and promotion. The members, which included the Dallas Nine, were especially interested in depicting the regional landscape and created variations on the farms, plains, forests, and deserts of Texas. They also experimented with different printmaking techniques, although most of the Dallas artists were not familiar with the medium. This was due largely to the scarcity of printing presses and tools in the Dallas region during the 1930s and 1940s. Artists had to either travel outside of Texas to access printing presses in workshops or utilize an approach that did not involve a press, such as woodcut or linoleum printing. Artist and Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Director Jerry Bywaters hired local printing businesses to press his lithographs on several occasions, but few Dallas printmakers could afford the expense.

Founding Members:

Jerry Bywaters

Thomas M. Stell, Jr.

Harry P. Carnohan

Otis M. Dozier

Alexandre Hogue

William Lester

Everett Spruce

John Douglass

Perry Nichols

Charles T. Bowling

Olin Herman Travis

H. O. Robertson

Merritt Mauzey

Excerpt from

Alexandra Wellington, DMA unpublished material