Texas Trends in Art Education, Volume 3, Number 1, Fall 1985 Page: 14
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Friday evening's lecture by Robert
Hughes was entitled "The Historical Basis
of Schools from the Renaissance to the
Present." The Houston Museum's Brown
Auditorium was filled with artists from
Houston and from around Texas. James
Surls, Melissa Miller, Derek Boshier, Laura
Russell, John Biggers, Don Shaw, Lynn Ran-
dolph, Earl Staley, Ben Woitena, Bert Long,
Antonio Davila and Gael Stack were among
the many artists there. Gallery dealers were
/14 also in attendance: Fredericka Hunter of
Texas Gallery, Clint Willour of Watson de
Nagy, and Hyram Butler of Butler Gallery
represented some of the Houston art deal-
ers. The State's art museums were also
represented: Linda Cathcart, director, Con-
temporary Art Museum, Houston; Peter
Marzio, director, Houston Museum of Fine
Arts, and Susan Mayer and me from the
Huntington Art Gallery, UT-Austin, were
among those present. Art critics, writers,
symposium participants and the press helped
fill the auditorium to capacity.Robert Hughes began his lecture by estab-
lishing a paradigm of "The Center" which he
equated with New York City and "The Pe-
riphery" which, in his model, represented
the regions (i.e., those areas outside NYC).
"The Center," Hughes said, is seen as the
utopia, the place of power and of money.
"The Periphery" is viewed as non-utopian-
without power, without money. "The Periph-
ery" in Hughes' dichotomous model is where
"culture is not." Hughes differentiated be-
tween provincial art and regional art by stat-
ing "provincial art is regional art without
self-confidence; provincialism demands vali-
dation from the outside-whereas regional
art does not." Museums, he continued, are
repositories of the "past triumphs" of art.
Museums become the standard for com-
parison for artists and, he contends, artists
must be able to see great art in order to
have confidence in producing their own
work. He also stated that regionalism-i.e.,
living outside "The Center"-is not an ex-
cuse for bad art when there are so many
museums for artists to look to for examples
of those past artistic triumphs.At this point in his lecture, Hughes dis-
cussed past schools of art, primarily the
15th century revival of interest in antiquity in
Italy which challenged local patronage and
helped to establish Rome as the center for
art production. Hughes asserted that cen-
ters tend to develop into schools and then
schools into academies. Patronage encour-
ages the center's growth and subsequently
brings about increased competition among
artists. Gradually over time the power of the
center begins to decline and ultimately a new
center is created such as Paris in the 18th
century and, after WWII, New York City.
Hughes continued to say that the re-
gionalism of Benton, Wood, and Curry of
fifty years ago was based on a strong ideo-
logical philosophy. Benton's regionalism in-
corporated a particular set of images which
were openly opposed to modernism and ur-
banity in theory and which were solidly rep-
resentational in style and overtly didactic in
message. Used in the 1980s, however, the
term regionalism no longer is based on nega-
tive concepts but embraces more positive
influences. Hughes maintained that region-
alism today means artists choose to live ei-Bettison, James
Alien Baby (Blue Background)
1984
Terry cloth
12" x 12" each of four panels
Collection of the ArtistTRENDS / fall 1985
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Texas Art Education Association. Texas Trends in Art Education, Volume 3, Number 1, Fall 1985, periodical, Autumn 1985; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279681/m1/16/?q=architectural+drawings: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Art Education Association.