Four historic paintings depicting Main Plaza in 1849 were returned to Bexar County officials recently, 70 years after they were loaned to the Witte Museum for a special exhibit in 1945.“This has probably been the longest loan in the Witte Museum’s history,” museum President Marise McDermott said.The renderings by William G.M. Samuel, a Bexar County lawman and commissioner in 1877, arrived just in time for the rededication of the 1897 Double-height Courtroom of the Bexar County Courthouse.Before migrating to the Witte, the paintings — with colorful images of daily life around Main Plaza — hung in a second-floor hall outside the courtroom, county facilities manager Betty Bueché said.When Samuel had an office nearby, he often approached courthouse visitors to talk about his paintings, never passing up an opportunity to expound on local history, Bueché said.The paintings will be displayed permanently on the walls of the restored courtroom, said Bueché, who thanked the Witte for carefully preserving them through the years.LOCALHHS discrepancies continue to be reportedBeal lived for church, family and charityLULAC chapter hosts rally for marriage equalityDreamWeek underwayFreezing rain, slick roads forecast for SaturdayTwo law enforcement members arrested within 24-hour periodPerry the master of the bold moveTheir return to county control fit well with the nostalgia of Tuesday’s courtroom ceremony. One of the paintings shows Casas Reales — the county’s first courthouse — on the plaza’s east side, and others portray the lively street life and commerce at the city’s core.McDermott said the paintings have helped the Witte tell the story of Texas. Their images are continually requested for use in teaching history, she said. Mainly kept in storage through the years, they were part of a 2012 Witte exhibit on early Texas artists.Samuel, 1825-1902, came to Texas from Missouri during the Mexican War of 1846-48. Settling in San Antonio, he was a farmer and city marshal, then a justice of the peace in Medina County. In 1877 he became a Bexar County commissioner and later deputy sheriff, the Texas State Historical Association reports.Samuel would gain renown as an early Texas folk artist, capturing Mission San José and other local scenes, and making portraits of Sam Houston, Bigfoot Wallace, Stephen F. Austin and Deaf Smith. But the Main Plaza scenes are his “most notable” works, according to the TSHA.“They show the buildings, residences and landmarks of the lively central plaza, with San Fernando Cathedral, the Casas Reales, La Quinta (the towns first post office), and the people of San Antonio going about their activities,” the TSHA’s Handbook of Texas states.“It is thought that Samuel probably painted the scenes from courthouse windows, looking out in the four directions. Some doubt that the paintings were actually done in 1849 and instead ascribe a later date to them. In any case, the four Main Plaza paintings have become valuable and vital records of San Antonio at mid-19th century,” the handbook states.In the introduction for “Art for History’s Sake: The Texas Collection of the Witte Museum,” William H. Goetzmann described Samuel’s four paintings as “charming folk art.”“He was recording history, but not a history of violence as we would expect from a gun-toting sheriff. Instead, what we see is San Antonio, prosperous with its vaqueros galloping about, horsemen roping runaway steers, all manner of carts, wagon trains, stagecoaches, and most of San Antonio’s major buildings recorded for history,” he wrote.Continuing, Goetzmann said that “in Samuel’s naive paintings, we see a crude realism, but we also see pride in the city’s progress and a dream — the dream that overshadows history itself — of a prosperous, peaceful cosmopolitan city on the far frontier of Texas.”[email protected]
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:40:22 +0000
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