FROM THE PIONEERS OF TEXAS PAINTING TO CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE, THE TEXAS NATIVES TALK THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF ART IN THEIR HOME STATE
Photos by Josh David Jordan
Dallas-based restaurateur Shannon Wynne got an early introduction to the Texas Art world. His parents were longtime collectors of a variety of works, the core of which were pieces by the Dallas Nine, a group of artists who made the city a dynamic center of American Regionalism during the 1930s and ’40s. Atlee Phillips, Heritage Auctions’ Director of Texas Art, also got an early start. The Fort Worth native was born into a family of gallery owners and sold her first painting when she was 8 years old. To celebrate their shared love of Texas Art – and in honor of Heritage’s next Texas Art Signature® Auction, which takes place December 14 – Phillips sat down with Wynne at his art-filled Dallas office to discuss his passion for self-portraits, the contemporary Texas artists who are catching his eye and the cherished Julian Onderdonk painting that almost got away.
Wynne with one of the newer works in his collection: ‘First Watch,’ 2023, by Shaun Roberts, an artist based in Nacogdoches, Texas
Atlee Phillips: You have two main focuses in your collection: works depicting people working and self-portraits of artists. What drew you to those works?
Shannon Wynne: With people working, there’s a story there. There’s action. There’s something happening. Landscapes bore me to tears. Self-portraits are something I kind of evolved into. You’ve got to have a certain amount of ego, you’ve got to be good, and that’s how you see yourself as an artist. So I thought it was an important and historic little niche.
AP: You’ve also commissioned some living artists to do self-portraits, which is cool because it gives you a chance to develop a relationship. You have a great eye, so it means a lot to the younger artists to be included in your collection. And now you’re branching out into sculpture.
SW: We have a place down at Caddo Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border. There I’ve got a Nic Nicosia, which is also at the Nasher Sculpture Center, and I’ve got a Brad Oldham, the guy that did The Walking Man in Deep Ellum.
A view of Wynne’s Dallas office, where much of his collection resides
AP: This really shows a sophisticated collector because sculpture is often the most intimidating, last thing that collectors get into. They don’t know quite what to do with it, and sometimes it’s the hardest thing to sell. So I love what you’re doing with outdoor sculpture.
SW: You’ve got to have a big place to do it, and it’s stupid expensive. Both pieces that I’ve commissioned for down there are all action-based, and there’s a story there. That’s the reason landscapes don’t really interest me. There are beautiful landscapes. In fact, I think I bought my Onderdonk from you and sold it through David Dike.
AP: Yeah, that’s right.
SW: There was a little-bitty man working in the background, so I did feel good about it.
AP: That’s my favorite Onderdonk I ever sold at Heritage. The secret about Onderdonk is he was terrible at painting people, truly awful. And there are not a lot of figures in good Onderdonk paintings, but this is a tiny figure in one of the best summertime limestone kind of things. It’s very William Merritt Chase, who he studied with. That figure draws your eye in, and it’s someone working. It’s their wagon and everything.
Phillips with a painting Wynne commissioned by Fort Worth-based artist Nancy Lamb
SW: Have you seen the Onderdonk I have of the little girl holding the baby?
AP: I don’t think so.
SW: I’d love for you to see that. This is a funny story. My father, a year before he died, got married. He divorced my mother and married this woman Margaret, which was fine – do what you want to do. But all my life I’d been raised with this Onderdonk of this little girl holding a baby. It was in my great-grandparents’ house, then it was at my grandparents’ house and then at my father’s house. And then it just disappeared. All of a sudden I’m going through the catalog from David’s auction, and there is the painting that we had been raised with. I called David and said, “Where did you get this painting? That’s my family’s painting.” And he said, “Some woman named Maggie in Fort Worth.” I said, “You mean Margaret?” And he said, “Yeah, I guess. She’s selling it.” And I went, “That’s where it went!”
So the night before the auction, David had a dinner for his big fancy collectors at my house. And I walked in, and I said, “Look, guys, I don’t know how to tell you this.” And then I went and got a picture of my great-grandmother sitting, playing the piano in front of this painting. And I said, “This was taken in 1911. I need to get this painting back. Please don’t bid against me tomorrow.” And then the bidding started and I’m just sweating bullets, and there’s some guy sitting next to David who just immediately bid. David went, “Stop. Don’t bid on this. It’s no good.” So I won the bid and got it back, but I had to buy it back.
AP: That’s a great story. One of the things I’ve been noticing lately is that as your walls have filled up, you’ve been mentoring younger collectors on how they can build a collection. Is that something you do consciously or just naturally with your friends?
Wynne’s collection contains several pieces by Dallas native David Bates, like this sculpture of a fisherman.
SW: Yeah. One of the problems with this group of collectors is they’re aging out. So it’s important to get their children interested in their parents’ collections. So I’ve been trying to get my kids and others – I make ’em go to the auction so they can see why something is valuable or why it’s not so valuable. I would be a liar if I told you I bought strictly because I like something. I buy it because I think it’s either historically significant or it will retain its value so my kids can sell it if they want to. And, again, my criteria – you’ve got to keep blinders on. I mean, if there is a painting of a guy working, I’m probably in the market for it, but if it’s no good, I’m going to pass it up.
AP: I do the same thing. I try to engage younger collectors and meet them and get them excited. I use prints as a gateway drug to art collecting – get involved in the $300, $400, $500 level and see how you like it.
SW: That’s why I started with lithographs. That’s all I could afford. That’s how I got started in learning about the different artists. Then, as my restaurants started to take off, I could afford more. So I started stepping gently into oils. For the last eight years or so, I’ve been selling off stuff that I collected when I was younger, oil or not, because I can do better, because that’s all I could afford at the time. It’s not great, but it was as good as I could afford, and I got it at what I thought was a good deal. And now, as I’ve started refining the collection, I’ve sold off stuff.
Portraits and depictions of people working make up a large portion of Wynne’s collection.
AP: How old were you when you started collecting?
SW: I was probably in my early 30s, and I’m almost 73. So I’ve been doing it a while. When I got this big building, that really opened things up because there was wall space everywhere. I can’t take anything home now because we don’t have another place to put it. Other collectors, they’ll do gallery hanging where they just cover a wall with shit. I hate that. I want it to breathe and let the art have its space. But there’s a little bit of cramming here.
A 2016 self-portrait by Fort Worth-based artist Sedrick Huckaby
AP: You’re focused on telling a story over aesthetics. I think that makes a lot of sense. Let’s talk about some of the contemporary Texas artists you’re interested in now.
SW: Well, there’s Jay Wilkinson from Fort Worth. I just commissioned him to do his self-portrait. He’s a really good painter. He’s not self-promoting enough. I’m trying to get him to push himself because he can paint his ass off. There’s a new guy I’ve started collecting, Shaun Roberts. He teaches painting at Stephen F. Austin, and he is a badass. There’s also Nancy Lamb – she can capture water like nobody – and Sedrick Huckaby, who lives in Fort Worth. He’s the next big thing.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.