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Chronology Robert Willson

Chronology

All of the quotes included in this chronology are taken from an unpublished memoir written by Robert Willson in 1981.

1912 Born on May 28 in Mertzon, Texas
  To be born in West Texas was a lucky break. . . It made sure that I belonged to an elite family, called West Texans. Our land, of course, was the center of the earth, as they said in ancient Delphi.
1930-31 Attended Southern Methodist University, Dallas
1931-34 Attended University of Texas at Austin, graduated with a B.A.
  In 1934, when I graduated from the University of Texas, I applied for an Farmer International Fellowship to Mexico. This fund sent a Texas student to Mexico each year and brought a Mexican student to the University. My proposal [was]. . . to visit every artist working in Mexico.
1935 Awarded a Farmer International Exchange Fellowship from the University of Texas to spend a year in Mexico
  Studied at the San Carlos Academy of Art in Mexico City
  A year in Mexico at this age was a luxury for any artist. There was no way to express to the University of Texas my appreciation and full enjoyment of that time. The real value was how much I was able to understand and take away for my use as an artist.

The year evoked my love of archeology by feeding it with actual ruins, artifacts, and remains of the pre-Conquest peoples of America, reinforced by meeting so many of the direct descendants of those ancient Americans. It was important guidance for me. During the summer I taught foreign students at the university. This course was the first ever given on the history of modern Mexican art. Some of the artists talked to my classes for me.

The first time I met Diego Rivera was while he was on his the scaffold, painting his important fresco, a history of Mexico, in the National Palace. Diego was bored and said, “Look you paint this last space. It’s all right, you can come on up here.” So I painted about a square foot of the mural on the stairway wall. Diego shrugged and did not destroy it. “It’s good enough,” he said. With him that day was his wife, Frida Kahlo, an artist herself.
1940 Became Director of Art Department at Texas Wesleyan College and Director of the Texas Wesleyan College Art Gallery in Fort Worth
1941 Received a M.F.A. with honors from the University of Fine Arts, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
  Married Virginia Lambert
1942-45 Served in the U.S. Marine Corps
1945 Returned to Texas Wesleyan in Fort Worth
  Son Joe (Mark Joseph) Willson was born
1946 Took leave of absence from Texas Wesleyan for further study and teaching
1948 Left Texas Wesleyan College to become Director of the Nob Hill Art Gallery in Winslow, Arkansas.
  Founded the Ozark Council of Artists and served as its first director
1952 Left the Nob Hill Art Gallery to become an art professor at the University of Miami in Coral Gables
1956 Received scholarship from The Coming Museum of Glass to study glass in museum collections.
  Made first trip to Venice and to the island of Murano, Italy
 

My introduction to glass in depth came through a chance scholarship at the Corning Museum of Glass in 1956. At the museum. . . I began to search out examples of glass sculpture in history, and to wonder how glass could be related to me and to sculpture today. . . . I spent a day with a great gentleman, Frederick Carder [the founding artistic director of Steuben Glass], who was 94 years old. For the first time I saw what it really meant to experiment with glass in an art sense, and how an artist could force glass to obey his ideas. Carder gave me a small sculpture. . . and then and there I caught the glass fever. Glass has not been the same since, nor have I.

The first visit of any art-oriented person to Venice must be a cultural shock. . . even to someone from a Texas ranch as I was in 1956. . . . The workshops and all the glass was impossibly exciting. . . . Molten glass is rich and utterly sensuous and ultimately magnificent. It cools to great color, to tight tensions, and to transparency that is mysterious. All this is the heart of my creative drive.

1957 Made first annual work trip to Venice to work with Venetian glass artists
  The glass dream became a reality.
  Awarded Merit Prize, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Annual Exhibition
1957-1960 Used U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare grant for a world trip to study glass as a material for sculpture. Traveled to England, Scandinavia, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Egypt, and Venice.
1964 “Robert Willson: Sculpture in Glass.” First solo exhibition of glass sculpture at the Galleria d’Arte dell’ Opera Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice
  My art. . . [sought]. . . color, transparency, tension and basic meaning, like a symbol. I discarded all other media except glass sculpture, watercolor, and reduction glazes on porcelain sculpture.
1966 “New Glass Sculpture by Robert Willson.” First solo exhibition in the U.S. at Harmon Gallery, Naples, Florida
1967-1999 Participated regularly in group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad
1968 “Robert Willson: Sculture in Vetro.” Solo exhibition at the Museo Correr, Venice
  Honored with membership in the Istituto Veneto per il Lavoro, Venice
1969 Served as consultant-director at the Peoria Art Museum, in Peoria, Illinois
1970 “Robert Willson: Glass Sculpture.” Solo exhibition at the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota
1970-1972 “Robert Willson: Glass Sculpture” traveled to Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach; Corning Museum of Glass, New York; Vizcaya- Dade County Art Museum, Miami
1972 Exhibited two glass sculptures in the Italian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Venice
  In 1972 I was invited to show in the Venice Biennale, perhaps the world’s top art exhibition. It was a thrill to be invited by the Italians. A Texas ranch man all the way to the canals of Venice!
1973 Organized “International Glass Sculpture” for the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
1977 Retired from teaching at the University of Miami to devote more time to his own art Divorced Virginia Willson
1978 Returned to San Antonio
  These were my best creative years.
1979 Established Tejas Art Press in San Antonio to publish Texan and Native American poetry and visual art.
  “Robert Willson: Sculpture in Glass.” Solo exhibition at the University Art Museum, University of Texas, Austin
  Made the first of three annual work trips to glass studios in West Virginia
  West Virginia. . . was nothing like Venice. Negative. The reward was Bob and Vonnie Hamon, Roberto Moretti, and Bill Blenko.
1980 Honored as Academician with Gold Medal, Italian Academy of Arts and Labor, Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy
1981 Married Margaret Bosshardt Pace
  In 1981, I began a new life of great promise.
  Robert Willson: Glass Sculpture.” Solo exhibition at the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio
1984 “Sculture in Vetro: Robert Willson.” Solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Ca ‘Pesaro, Venice
1988 “The Glass Sculpture of Robert Willson.” Solo exhibition at the San Antonio Museum of Art
1989 “The Glass Sculpture of Robert Willson” traveled to the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, Texas
1990 “Sculpture in Glass: Works by Robert Willson.” Solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art
1991 “Robert Willson: Works in Glass.” Solo exhibition at the Martin Museum of Art, Baylor University, Waco, Texas
1993 “Robert Willson: Works in Glass” traveled to the New Mexico Museum of Modern Art, Santa Fe
1996 “Transparencies: Glass Sculpture by Robert Willson.” Solo exhibition at the Ellen Noel Art Museum of the Permian Basin, Odessa
  Participated in the Venezia Aperto Vetro, Venice
1999 “Trail of the Maverick: Watercolors and Drawings by Robert Willson, 1975–1998.” Solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art
1999–2000 “Trail of the Maverick: Watercolors and Drawings by Robert Willson, 1975–1998” traveled to the Masur Art Museum, Monroe, Louisiana and Centenary College, Shreveport
2000 Died at home in San Antonio on June 1
2001 “Robert Willson: From the Permanent Collection.” Solo exhibition at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts
2002 “Robert Willson: Image Maker.” Solo exhibition at the Southwest School of Art and Craft, San Antonio
2003 “Robert Willson: A Texan in Venice.” Solo exhibition at The Corning Museum of Glass, New York