Kelly Fearing (Texas / Arkansas, 1918-2011), mountain landscape with pine trees, watercolor on watercolor paper, signed and dated lower right, 1954

sight: 12 x 16 in., frame: 18 x 22 in.

Provenance: Property from a home in Neosho, Missouri

Kelly Fearing pursued graduate study at Columbia University in New York after studying art at Louisiana Tech University, and he became a leading figure in Texas modernism as a founding member of the Fort Worth Circle and a longtime professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Known for his surrealist, magical realist, mystical naturalist, and Romantic surrealist approaches, Fearing worked across traditional media, particularly excelling in oil painting and collage. He exhibited at the Valley House Gallery in Dallas and the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery in Austin, and his work was associated with the broader Fort Worth Circle movement that helped introduce modernist ideas to Texas art. In addition to his career as an artist and educator, Fearing founded the University of Texas Junior Art Project, an innovative university-based visual-arts outreach program for children, and in 2007 received the College of Fine Arts’ E. William Doty Award, its highest honor recognizing distinction and extraordinary service to the college.