The Lost Pines Art Center is pleased to announce an exclusive showing of early work of Smithville artist Glenn Whitehead (1940-2016). Glenn is well known for his sweeping landscapes of Texas and the Southwest, but only his close friends and followers are aware that early in his career Glenn painted a series of clowns. 

While browsing for gifts for a children’s party in Wichita, Kansas, Glenn was attracted to a metal noisemaker featuring a brightly colored “winking clown”. This motif would occupy him for several years and give him the pleasure of endless variation and experimentation. His clowns were an exercise in color and the treatment of surface. He dipped into art history and rendered some in the manner of famous artists from other eras. He linked the clowns to then popular commemorative  presidential plates, giving them the labels, “The Thirty-Seventh Winking Clown of the United States of America”...and so forth.

Glenn’s whimsical treatment of the clowns is reminiscent of the armadillo icons he created during his years at the Ranger Magazine of the University of Texas at Austin. 

The exhibition will run from September 4 to October 31, 2019.

An opening reception will be held on October 5 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

Gallery Talk by Wanda Gamble October 5 at 7:00 pm

Lost Pines Art Center

1204 Chestnut Street

Bastrop Texas 78957

512-321-8055

Hours Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm