Dawson Dawson-Watson (1864-1939), Prickly Pear, 1935, oil on canvas, 16 x 20", frame: 21 x 26"

Provenance: The Estate of Harris Arthur "Archie" Rader (1884-1971) of Lockhart, Texas, owned by the Rader family for 86 years

Born in London, England, Dawson Dawson-Watson was a landscape, portrait, genre, marine, and mural painter and graphics artist who was the son of a popular English illustrator. Returning to the United States, he taught from 1903 to 1904 at Byrdcliffe Colony, a center for the Artist and Crafts Movement in Woodstock, New York. This period was followed by teaching for eleven years at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, serving as art director of a pageant in Brandesville, Missouri, and in 1918, serving a year as director of the San Antonio Art Guild. In 1926, he settled permanently in San Antonio, encouraged by members of the San Antonio Art League, and he participated in many exhibitions, often winning prizes, including first place ($5,000) at the 1927 Edgar B. Davis Competition. He also painted the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Murals include "Meditation" in the Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, and "The Open Book of Nature" at Wichita High School in Kansas.