Additional information
by Susie Kalil (Author)
Presenting the unique vision of an American original . . .
Alexandre Hogue, a renowned artist whose career spanned from the 1920s to his death in 1994, inherited the view of an America that imagined itself as filled with limitless potential for improvement, that considered high art and great ideas accessible to ordinary working people, and that saw no reason for an intellectual chasm between a learned elite and the masses. He always viewed himself as a radical, yet his passion stemmed from a deeply conservative idea: that art, culture, and nature should form a central force in the life of every human being.
His well-known Dust Bowl series labeled him as a regionalist painter, but Hogue never accepted that identity. His work reveals the spirit of Texas and the Southwest as he experienced it for nearly a century. In his later years Hogue worked in forms of crisply rendered nonobjective and calligraphic one-liner paintings. Bringing to light new information regarding the Erosion and Oil Industry series, this book gives special attention to lesser known, post-1945 works, in addition to the awe-inspiring Moon Shot and final Big Bend series.
Each series--from the hauntingly beautiful Taos landscapes and prophetic canvases of a dust-covered Southwest to his depictions of the fierce geological phenomena of the Big Bend--serves as a paean to the awesomeness of nature.
Houston-based curator and critic Susie Kalil grew close to Hogue from 1986 to 1994, a time during which she interviewed him, considered his oeuvre with him, and came to share his vision of the nature and purposes of art. In Alexandre Hogue she reveals Hogue as he presented himself and his work to her.
Collections with Alexandre Hogue's paintings:
Musee National D'Art Moderne, Pompidou, ParisDallasMuseum of ArtMuseum of Fine Arts, HoustonThe GilcreaseMuseum, TulsaThe Philbrook Museum of Art, TulsaUniversity of TulsaTulsa Performing ArtsCenterSmithsonian Institution (NationalMuseum of American Art), Washington, DCOklahomaMuseum of Art, Okla CityThe SheldonMuseum of Art, University of Nebraska, LincolnPhoenixArt MuseumUniversity of Arizona, TucsonArt Museum of SouthTexas, Corpus ChristiPanhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Tx.StarkMuseum, Orange, TxSouthern MethodistUniversity, DallasSpringfieldArt Museum, Springfield, MissouriWeatherspoonArt Museum, University of North Carolina at GreensboroThe Federal Reserve Bank, DallasThe Williams Companies, Tulsa
Author Biography
SUSIE KALIL is a former Core Fellow in Critical Studies at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Kalil co-curated (with Barbara Rose) the landmark exhibition, Fresh Paint: The Houston School, and curated The Texas Landscape: 1900-1986.
