Seven out of ten Texans live in the Texas Triangle, the megaregion that includes Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Urbanites have plenty of great museums to choose from, but they’re far from the only Texans with access to world-class art galleries and spaces. Cultural centers from Albany to Waxahachie offer a wealth of work by artists of all stripes, some with a special focus on local creators and local history, others with art world gems from far beyond the state’s borders. Each of the following places is a destination in its own right, not to mention a popular answer to the question “What’s your favorite museum?”
The Old Jail Art Center
Albania
In 1980, a group of moneyed families in a seemingly barren area of north-central Texas ensured that a small, Lonely dove– The stone prison of the era was not demolished, but preserved as an unlikely place for art. Built by Scottish stonemasons in 1877, the prison has since been expanded and is now one of the most interesting places to view art anywhere in the state. You can still tour the cramped cells of the original building, but the real thrill of the OJAC is its small but mighty, wildly eclectic collection of 2,300 works spanning the globe from antiquity to the present day. For temporary exhibitions, indefatigable director and curator Patrick Kelly selects the finest contemporary art from Texas. A show at OJAC is an enviable stamp of approval for artists working here. The Old Prison is also a lively cultural center for locals, with regular programs for families. But even if you don’t live in Albany, just 125 miles west of Fort Worth, OJAC is always worth a stop no matter where you’re headed. – Rainey Knudson
Southeast Texas Museum of Art
Beaumont
If you’re not yet familiar with the late visionary, self-taught sculptor Felix “Fox” Harris, the Southeast Texas Museum of Art in downtown Beaumont is the best place to start. A semi-permanent gallery of the totem poles that once filled Harris Beaumont’s courtyard is one of AMSET’s most popular rooms. But don’t stop there. AMSET has established itself deep in our hearts by focusing on regional artists and, most importantly, collecting their work. While its temporary exhibitions often shine a light on contemporary mid-career talent, the museum’s permanent collection holds works from a
a who’s who of more than 430 artists from Texas and Louisiana, mostly from the 20th and 21st centuries. More recently, AMSET has also become home to an important collection of twentieth-century Mexican folk art—a collection of more than six hundred pieces that includes intricate black ceramics by master Carlomagno Pedro Martínez, all donated by Prof. the late Texas A&M University design and botanist John Fairey. -Molly Glentzer
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
Canyon
The Texas Panhandle during the Great Depression could not have been a particularly welcoming place. And yet, in 1933, a group of visionary citizens in the Canyon (just nineteen miles south of Amarillo, on the way to New Mexico and Colorado from the Texas Triangle) opened a museum to preserve the region’s early, vanished history. The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, or PPHM, is both one of the single most beautiful and least known examples of museum architecture in all of Texas. Built in a style called Prairie Deco, the limestone building is decorated with carvings of local flora, fauna and western themes, with more than 75 famous West Texas cattle brands lining the front doors. Expansions to the building in the 1960s and seventies resulted in more than 285,000 square feet for exhibits, a research center, and holdings of more than three million artifacts, including a robust collection of Texan and American Southwest art. Permanent exhibits on everything from geology and paleontology to “Panhandle Petroleum History” to antique cars and windmills make PPHM a varied and enjoyable visit. –RK.
South Texas Museum of Art
The body of Christ
Beautifully and somewhat precariously located on the bayfront, the Corpus Christi Museum of Fine Arts is a first for its architecture: Philip Johnson’s dramatic postmodern design from 1972 and Ricardo Legorretta’s pyramid-themed expansion from 2006. Part the interior also has a distinct personality, thanks to a permanent collection of more than 1,850 objects focused on
a category that is not so easy to wrangle—the art of America. Spanish colonial works, pre-Columbian artifacts and related works of contemporary art stand on their own within a stunning permanent exhibition. The most diverse works and traveling exhibitions come and go within a massive central hall and smaller galleries; some also hang at Texas A&M University – Corpus
Christi’s Campus. Works on paper are a particular strength. And Dorothy Hood fans, take note: AMST owns the legendary Houston artist’s entire archive, with a mother lode of her large, otherworldly paintings and brilliant surrealist drawings. After strolling the halls, feast your eyes on harbor views from the sophisticated in-house restaurant, Elizabeth’s. – MG
El Paso Museum of Art
Step
If Texas is like another country, then El Paso is doubly so, a land of its own, cut off from the state’s other urban centers by hundreds of miles of desert and part of a uniquely large and intimate metropolitan region bordering the Ciudad. Juárez, Mexico. The El Paso Museum of Art has the complex task of reflecting and cultivating the area’s inimitable cultural tastes, plus offering city residents a glimpse of a wider world through art.
It’s a widely successful institutional mix, with notable collections of works by regional artists including Tom Lea, Gaspar Enriquez and Luis Jiménez, plus the occasional temporary exhibit celebrating a local kid who’s done well, like Don Bluth. For more than a decade, EPMA has also run a fascinating series of irregular “cross-border biennials,” in partnership with the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez, showcasing new works by artists from both sides of the river. The European and Latin American collections are also worth checking out, rounding out this museum as a worthy beacon of Paseño culture for visitors and locals alike. – Michael Agresta
Galveston Arts Center
Galveston
The Galveston Arts Center is not a collecting institution. Instead, it’s an exhibition space and a whole philosophy: that local art is something to celebrate, think about and participate in, and should be for everyone. GAC’s idea of venues extends far beyond the Causeway, and over time its thoughtful shows, which change every few weeks, will introduce you to interesting artists from all over Texas. The center is housed in a nineteenth-century bank building in the heart of the tourist Strand, but its exhibitions and programs – including regular ArtWalks and a busy schedule of art-making workshops for adults and children – are among the highlights. the best of the island’s vital present. – Marilyn Bailey
Marfa Ballroom
Marfa
The small high desert town of Marfa is America’s art world capital in exile, where you can’t swing a dead spear without hitting an MFA, PhD, or ex-employee of a fancy coastal gallery or museum. The Chinati Foundation (below) laid the groundwork for this unique community in the 1980s with permanent installations of works by Donald Judd and others, but since 2003, the Marfa Ballroom has been the city’s can’t-miss stop for contemporary exhibitions that advance a new vision for world-class art in the Trans-Pecos. Maybe you saw Beyonce posing with the Prada Marfa building on US 90? Or have you heard about the Stonehenge-inspired full moon events at the Stone Circle, in a field outside the city? This is only the beggining. In recent years, the Ballroom project space has hosted unique installations by LA’s Rafa Esparza, who works in adobe; Brazil’s Solange Pessoa, who also favors earthy materials; and Houston “disaster guru” Timothy Morton, who co-curated a show focused on climate change. All of the above projects – and Ballroom’s latest, by Carolina Caycedo and David de Rozas – have a similar work of reverence and concern for the fragile natural world against the backdrop of our modern and sophisticated age. –me
China Foundation
Marfa
Chinati oversees the foundational artworks and spaces that put Marfa on the (art) map. Block out half a day to experience modern art on an exciting scale. The many buildings dedicated to Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin and John Chamberlain are open via paid tours (the full one is four and a half hours; or do just the outdoor part, a 1.6-mile walk taking in Judd’s concrete box sculptures and more). Inside the airy former artillery warehouses that hold rows of Judd’s aluminum boxes, glass walls make the landscape—along with mule deer and rabbits—as important as the artist’s ideas and creations. It’s hypnotic, as is entering and exiting the six old U-shaped barracks buildings, passing from blazing sunlight to dark galleries, one after the other, to encounter various pipe arrangements and effects of Flavin colored fluorescent light. Chinati Weekend each October, a tradition Judd himself started in 1987, is a good time to go for additional events and exhibits. – UK
Webb Gallery
Waxahachie / Fort Davis
The Webb Gallery feels like it’s giving you a big hug every time you visit. And thank you: the world could always use more wonder, magic, and big-hearted enthusiasm for the human spirit. And that’s exactly what Julie and Bruce Webb serve up at their namesake location in downtown Waxahachie. Messy road trippers, the Webbs scour unseen places for overlooked contemporary and visionary art. They are known for their groundbreaking collection of artifacts from former Masons, Odd Fellows and other fraternal lodges, as written in Bruce’s book, Both up and down (University of Texas Press, 2015). Picture a creaking cast-iron-fronted 1902 building overflowing with art, design, books, photos and antiques, and you get a sense of Webb’s joie de vivre. And now the Webbs have a second outpost in West Texas. Their former Masonic lodge in Fort Davis (the destination for people who can no longer tolerate the escalating vicissitudes of nearby Marfa) is “open by event, meeting or appointment.” – RK
