A Texas Art Master At 90 — William Anzalone Still Keeps Defying Convention In a New Red & White Moment

The Red & White Gallery in Fayetteville (14 miles outside of Round Top) will be the place to begin the Texas art season when the gallery rolls out a tribute to a grand master of landscape and the figure. Cue “William Anzalone at 90,” a pop-up exhibition showcasing the storied painter’s recent work as he enters his 10th decade.

Showcased will be nine new paintings, all in the OG artist’s signature and classic oil on canvas method. The new exhibition opens this Saturday, September 6.

While based in Round Top for 40-plus years, Anzalone is well known to Houston collectors for his three-decade teaching career as a professor of art at the University of Houston and above all, an unparalleled run of 55 years exhibiting at the bastion of American art — the blue-chip Meredith Long & Company gallery.

What will you see in this new exhibition at Red & White, where Anzalone has regularly exhibited since 2013? The landscapes of an artist who is still defying conventional notions of nature, with his powerful commentary on abstraction and the grid, while reintroducing figures into the canvas. We went to Anazlone himself to learn more in this PaperCity Interview:

An Art Master Unplugged

You, the landscape, and art history.

William Anzalone: I have loved looking at American landscape painters. You could go to (George) Inness or you could go to (Ralph Albert) Blakelock. Meredith Long had a great collection of American landscape painters. Early 19th to 20th century. Always an education there. Then you move into the Ashcan School, and there’s (George) Bellows, and he’s just a terrific painter.

I also started out really liking people like Bonnard and Monet, and I’m to the point now where they are candy-box painters. It’s colors just splattered around. But it’s nice and friendly — but I like stuff that’s got some guts to it.

You know, to me the answer to everything is black. In essence, I draw it. I draw constantly in paintings, and whenever I have a problem with painting, I draw. If I have to obliterate the painting, that’s just fine. I hate to tell you how many paintings are under each canvas. I paint over and over. They start off one way, and they wind up someplace else.

Contemporary painters you admire?

WA: If I have to respond, this is going to sound strange as hell. . . Anselm Kiefer. He’s got a factory. There’s no way one man can produce what he produces. So he’s got people working for him. There’s a consistency that his mind has.

On you and the grid.

WA: To me, landscapes are useless unless there’s something to counteract them. There’s got to be a straight line someplace. So I use a fence. I use gates. I use houses. I use barns. I use anything I can stick into the landscape to make sure it’s not a bunch of (undefined) wooly willies.

In every one of these works, I can tell you where each place is. The road and the gate are everything in that little picture. Now I’m not done with it yet. I’m convinced the gate needs to be a little bit brighter. I’ll minimize everything else. The field was grass, and I didn’t want to paint a bunch of grass. I’m not interested in grass. I’m interested in punctuating (the composition) with (details of interest), then (directing the viewer to) the light up into the sky.

On what’s new in your recent work for Red & White?

WA: I feel that you (no longer) get lost in pretty. God, I can paint pretty. You should see me paint pretty. But I have to stop myself. I tend to lose focus, because I love paint. Just moving that stuff around I get excited. Everything is about paint.

“William Anzalone at 90,” at Red & White Gallery in Fayetteville is set to open this Saturday, September 6 from 4 pm to 7 pm. Anzalone will be there. The exhibition will be on view through Saturday, September 27. Arrange private showings by calling Jerry Herring at (713) 824-9433. For more information and images, go here.