William Lewis Lester (Texas, 1910-1991), "Windows", oil on relined canvas, inscribed on the verso with signature, title, and date (1946)

sight: 12 x 16 in., frame: 17 x 21 in.

Provenance: Property from a home in McKinney, Texas

William Lewis Lester trained at the Dallas Art Institute under Thomas M. Stell, Jr., and Olin H. Travis, emerging as a central figure in the Dallas-based Texas Regionalist movement, The Dallas Nine. A founding member of the Dallas Artists League (1932) and later the Lone Star Printmakers (1938), he helped shape a distinctly local American Scene aesthetic. Though initially aligned with Regionalism, Lester’s style evolved into more vibrant compositions influenced in part by Mexican modernist Rufino Tamayo, and by the mid-1960s his work approached full abstraction. Lester gained national recognition early, exhibiting at the Texas Centennial Exposition (1936) and the First National Exhibition of American Art at Rockefeller Center the same year, followed by major shows at venues including the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939), the Art Institute of Chicago (1942), and the Denver Art Museum (1944). Significant solo exhibitions included the Passadoit Gallery in New York (1948, 1950, 1953), the Dayton Art Institute (1949), and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City (1970).