Carl Rice Embrey (Hamilton, Texas, 1938-2022), four pencil studies and sketches, graphite on paper

sight: 8 x 8 in., frame: 13.5 x 13.5 in.

Provenance: The estate of the artist, Hamilton, Texas; thence in a San Antonio, Texas collection

Carl Rice Embrey was born in Hamilton, Texas in 1938. After receiving his MFA from the University of Texas in the mid-1960s, Embrey took on a teaching job at the San Antonio Art Institute, where he remained on the faculty until the school’s closure in 1993. In 1997, the McNay Art Museum organized a one-man retrospective of Embrey’s work, one of a series recognizing five of the state’s most respected artists. At the start of his career, Embrey was mostly a non-representational painter, heavily influenced by the Abstract Expressionist movement. From there, he gradually incorporated representation into his work until arriving at the meticulously realist landscapes and interiors he is now known for. He typically spends 800 to 2,000 hours on a painting. Embrey is greatly inspired by his ancestral home in Hamilton, where his family has lived for over a century, and where he has now returned to live after many decades in San Antonio.