William (Bill) Zaner (1930-2015), "Rio Grande Valley, Near Ojinaga", 1970, watercolor, sight: 19.5 x 27.5", frame: 30.5 x 38.5"

Provenance: A Bulverde, Texas collection

The landscapes of Texas filled each day"™s work for painter Bill Zaner. The artist discovered his subject as a young man after he first moved to Texas. He has a lifetime of work to prove it, too. No two works are alike. A sea of bluebonnets surround a gnarled live oak beneath a bright sky in the Hill Country. Jagged red mountains reach into the heavens in Big Bend. Cranes dip to cresting waves on the Gulf of Mexico. Water swirls around the ancient roots of a cypress along the Guadalupe River. Zaner said he never wanted to do anything else with his life but paint. After leaving the Army in the early 1950s and moving to Texas, he lived in Houston where he began his artistic career painting portraits. He continued to do that as he transitioned into painting landscapes. Zaner"™s work is a valued addition to many public and private collections, including the Texas Artists Collection of Texas A&M University, the Frost Bank Collection in San Antonio, and many corporate collections including Dow Chemical USA, Entex, Internorth, Home Petroleum, Reading and Bates Company, Wanda petroleum and Amoco. His work was represented in juried and invitational exhibits including the Texas Watercolor Society, Dimension Houston, and the San Antonio Art League.