Rediscovered Texas Artist at the Witte
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor
The Witte Museum is always alive with interesting new exhibits but the current show featuring the work of James Ferdinand McCan stands out because of its history. More than a century ago, this Irish immigrant arrived in Texas and fell in love with Texas landscapes, native flora and fauna, and the whole Texas experience. He proceeded to document everything he experienced in this wild but changing land through his detailed paintings, leaving behind a treasure trove of images that present a record of the time, people and places of Texas.
The current Witte exhibit is titled James Ferdinand McCan: A Texas Artist Rediscovered for a good reason. Most of his art was in private collections – or languishing in private storage – unavailable to the public. The person most responsible for the “rediscovery” is the Witte’s Director of Humanities, Mary Margaret McAllen, who traveled throughout South Texas in search of his painting.
“In 2017-18 we planned a show about 250 years of Texas art,” said McAllen, as we sat in her upstairs office at the museum. “As the catalog for that show was being printed a friend of mine from the King Ranch Kleberg family, Caroline Aexander Forgason, came to me and said, ‘There’s a great painter you should include in this exhibition. He’s the greatest Texas artist no one has heard of.’
It was too late to include anything more in that catalog, which had already gone to press, but we put together a request to the family to helps us organize a separate exhibition of McCan’s work sometime in the future.”
Which is exactly what happened. The Kleberg Foundation, the McCan family and several other foundations gave the museum the funds to mount an exhibition and produce a catalog of it. The next step took McAllen and Forgason all over south Texas in search of the actual artwork. It helped that the King Ranch had 14 paintings, mostly portraits of the King-Kleberg family members, commissioned a century or so ago. In fact, McCan had a studio at the ranch for a while. He also became acquainted with the burgeoning San Antonio art scene and eventually established a studio in Victoria where he and his family had settled.
In their travels the two friends went to McFaddin, TX, in 2019 to see McCan’s granddaughter and owner of some of his pieces. The lady knew little about her grandfather due to a divorce in the previous generations, but she nevertheless had about 20 of the paintings. More paintings were discovered in San Antonio private collections. Eventually, it became clear to McAllen that the artworks were evolving in parallel with changes in Texas landscapes and lifestyle.
“Through his 30 years of painting, he recorded the changing landscape of Texas,” she said. “At first, not many trees and brush are seen in his works but that started to change as the landscape changed. He also painted wild and domestic animals over decades, preserving images of animals that no longer roam around our state. You also see the changes in the portraits of the King Ranch family, from looking like typical Europeans (Belgian and German) to looking like cowboys on the range.”
An unexpected development occurred more recently after the death of the artist’s granddaughter. The paintings that she had were brought to the Witte for cleaning and storage but then the relatives cleaning the house discovered a large box of documents, including personal letters, McCan’s passport, immigration papers and photos.
“Suddently we had a story, the story of his life,” said the curator.
Witte’s CEO, Marise McDermott, summarized the importance of the current exhibit.
“A re-discovered Texas artist is especially tantalizing for museum professionals at the Witte, where Texas Art has had a central place since its founding in 1926,” she wrote in the catalog introduction… “McCan’s paintings were included in an opening Texas Art exhibition at the Witte Museum in the late 1920s. Almost a century later, we can place McCan among the Texas artists displayed at the museum, in an exclusive exhibition that includes his life and work.”
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On view through Oct. 2, 2022; Witte Museum, 3801 Broadway, 78209; 210-357-1900, www.wittemuseum.org
I purchased Mary Margaret McAllen’s book on McCan – what a fascinating story! And what a delightful, eye-opening exhibition – congrats to the Witte for this project.
I look forward to seeing this exhibit, and I hope that the locations are noted in the list of works. As the landscape has changed, I am certain the climate in those areas has changed as well. Perhaps this will spur important conservation efforts so that the beautiful landscapes appreciated and documented by this artist can be enjoyed in person as well as in McCan’s art, and will continue to exist to inspire other artists.
Thank you for this article.