About the Collection
The Jerry Bywaters Special Collections concentrates on visual and performing arts in the U.S. Southwest, with a special strength in the papers of renowned Texas Regionalist artists. Holdings include photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks, art exhibit catalogs, sketches and sketchbooks, lithographs, slides, articles, and manuscripts. The collections document the lives, careers, and works on paper of artists such as Jerry Bywaters, Otis and Velma Davis Dozier, Octavio Medellin, Everett Spruce, Edward G. Eisenlohr, DeForrest Judd, William Lester, Olin Travis, Janet Turner, Esther Webb Houseman, Vivian Aunspaugh, and more.
The largest artist’s collection, the Jerry Bywaters Collection on Art of the Southwest, includes catalogs, clipping files, correspondence, photographs, mural studies, slides, and works of art on paper related to Jerry Bywaters' career as artist, director of the Dallas Museum of Art, and long-time SMU faculty member, as well as to the work of many of his artistic contemporaries in the region. He is considered to be a Texas Regionalist artist and one of several artists working in this style in Dallas during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
Materials in this digital collection are from the Jerry Bywaters Collection on Art of the Southwest, E.G. Eisenlohr Art Work and Papers, and DeForrest Judd Art Work and Papers.