A famous work by the late San Antonio impressionist painter Julian Onderdonk is going on the auction block this weekend.
Texas Landscape with Bluebonnets hasn’t been seen for decades.
It has been in a private collection in San Antonio and was last displayed at the Witte Museum in 1975.
Atlee Phillips, director of Texas Art at Fine Art Heritage Auctions in Dallas was a guest on the Texas Standard on Friday.
“Julian was the first real bluebonnet painter. He was born in San Antonio, the son of an artist,” said Phillips. “He went away to New York and studied with the best teacher of the time, William Merritt Chase. And then he came back to paint the Texas landscape and he really was the father of what we call the bluebonnet school, which is still wildly popular today.”
Because Onderdonk died at the young age of 40 in 1922, there is a relatively small body of work that represents his career.
Texas Landscape with Bluebonnets is expected to sell for between $150,000 and $250,000.
