Flashback : Dallas

“Old Tex” sketch by Otis Dozier, 1954 — Dallas Museum of Art

© Marie Scott Miegel and Denni Davis Washburn

by Paula Bosse

Hey, y’all, guess what’s just around the corner. Whenever you start seeing pictures of Big Tex, you know that the State Fair of Texas can’t be too far away.

There have been a lot of artistic depictions of Big Tex over the years, but I think this sketch by Dallas artist Otis Dozier (1904-1987) may be my all-time favorite. And I’ve only just discovered it! (Thank you, DMA!)

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This wonderful ink, watercolor, and crayon sketch of “Old Tex” is contained in one of Otis Dozier’s sketchbooks, now in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art, a gift of the Dozier Foundation (© Marie Scott Miegel and Denni Davis Washburn). To see details on this work, see the page on the DMA’s website, here.

The Otis Dozier sketchbooks have been digitized in a joint project between the Dallas Museum of Art, SMU’s Bywaters Special Collections at the Hamon Arts Library, and SMU’s Norwick Center for Digital Services. To read about this fantastic collection, see the SMU Central University Libraries page, here.

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This week, the Dallas Museum of Art launched a new digital database in which its entire collection is now accessible online! This is great news for many reasons, not least being that it allows the public to see works that are rarely — if ever — displayed in the museum. Such as this one. To read more about assembling this incredible database, read the DMA’s announcement, here.

To look up your favorite artist, check to see what the DMA has, here.

For the biography of the Forney-born Dozier (who was one of the members of the famed Dallas Nine group), see the Handbook of Texas entry here.

Click picture for larger image.

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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.