A New Mobile Tour Dedicated to a Texas Artist
The Texas Historical Commission has partnered with the Tom Lea Institute to present a new multimedia experience for art-loving heritage travelers. Hit the road with our new mobile tour and get to know Tom Lea's Texas.
Extending from the north in the small town of Seymour to the South Texas chapparal, where Lea authored and illustrated what is regarded as one of the greatest ranching histories ever written, this tour of Tom Lea's life and work will take you on epic drives into the pastoral landscapes for which Texas is well known.
A Brief Introduction to Tom Lea
As a boy growing up in El Paso at the turn of the century, Thomas Calloway Lea III (1907-2001) was exposed to the stories and settings of Native Peoples of West Texas and a ranch-oriented way of life that was giving way to the Industrial Revolution. As an adult, Lea's training as a muralist in Chicago drew him back to these depictions of early Texas and Mexico, and, upon his return to El Paso, he completed murals that honored the legends and landscapes of his childhood. These works include a mural for the Texas Centennial celebration as well as government-awarded projects across the United States including the Benjamin Franklin Post Office in Washington, D.C., the Federal Courthouse in El Paso, and post offices in Odessa and Seymour, among others.
Tom Lea and World War II
From 1941 to 1946, Lea worked as a civilian artist correspondent for LIFE magazine, providing some of the first eyewitness accounts of World War II to millions of American readers. This period expanded Lea's artistic range and helped shape his philosophy as an observer and communicator of the world around him. His illustration of a traumatized soldier in “The Two-Thousand Yard Stare” (1944) would become an iconic image of the trauma experienced by soldiers during wartime.
On His Experiences During World War II
"I did not report hearsay; I did not imagine, or fake, or improvise; I did not cuddle up with personal emotion, moral notion, or political opinion about War with a capital W. I reported in pictures what I saw with my own two eyes, wide open.”
-Tom Lea
From Pictures to Words
After the war, Lea embarked on a new artistic chapter, this time as a writer. His debut novel, The Brave Bulls, showcased his brush and ink illustrations, which captivated readers and propelled the book to bestseller status, eventually inspiring a cinematic adaptation. Following this success, Lea penned The Wonderful Country, a tale set in the fictional locale of Puerto, drawing inspiration from his hometown of El Paso. Notably, he employed a distinctive pen-and-ink drawing style that differed from his earlier work on The Brave Bulls. Tom Lea, ever the experimenter, eschewed fixed artistic styles (to which his career will attest) and preferred to adapt his approach to suit the specific demands of each subject.
Lea and the King Legacy
In addition to fiction, Tom Lea authored and provided illustrations for the comprehensive two-volume history of The King Ranch. Initially, he and Bob Kleberg anticipated completing the project within a year, commemorating the ranch's centennial anniversary with a single volume. However, as Lea delved deeper into the ranch's rich history, the project expanded into an epic narrative spanning two volumes, ultimately seeing the light of day four years after the King Ranch Centennial.