Warner Hoople (Texas, 1904-1989), East Texas drill rig, watercolor on paper

sight: 26 x 18 in., frame: 34.5 x 27.5 in.

Provenance: A Georgetown, Texas oil rigger's collection

Warner Hoople was a well-known British artist who came to Texas in the 1950s to capture scenes of the oil industry. Hoople was a commercial designer in Dallas prior to beginning his painting career. Hoople was a trained industrial designer from Illinois, receiving patents for his designs for a billfold, a waffle iron, an automobile visor attachment, and various furniture. The Borden County Museum in Gail, Texas has copies of his designs. In the late 1940s Hoople was chiefly painting portraits of oil men's children when one asked if he would paint a portrait of one of his oil wells. That led to an endless number of commissions for oil well portraits, which were always done en plein air. Hoople was featured in the December 5, 1949 issue of Life Magazine as part of an article on the West Texas oil boom. Warner died in Dallas in 1973.

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