Everett Spruce was born on a farm in Conway to William E. and Fannie McCarthy Spruce. He came to Dallas at the age of 17 on a scholarship to study at the Dallas Museum of Art under Olin Travis and Thomas M. Stell, Jr. In 1931, he became a gallery assistant at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, and in 1934 he married Alice V Kramer, an art classmate. He was one of the Dallas Nine, a group of Southwestern artists. By the time he joined the art faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1940, he had achieved national recognition and his work was selected for inclusion in major national juried exhibitions.
From 1949-1951, he served as chairman of the art department at the University of Texas at Austin, became a professor of art in 1954, and served as director of the Graduate Studio of Art from 1961-74. In 1974, he retired as a professor emeritus and was recognized as one of the outstanding artists of Texas.
His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Texas Centennial Exhibition Dallas, Museum of Fine Arts, Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, Annual Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, American Painting and Sculpture, Carnegie Institution of Pittsburgh, A Separate Part of the Earth, Pan American Union Washington, DC.
After his retirement from the University of Texas, he was honored with a retrospective exhibition, Selected Paintings and Drawings, 1950-1979. In 1993, he was honored with the exhibition “Companions in Time: Paintings by William Lester and Everett Spruce” at the Laguna Gloria Museum of Art.
Mr. Spruce has won numerous awards, including the Pepsi-Cola Painting of the Year Award, the National Academy of Design of New York, the Scheidt Memorial Award, the 142nd Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the first prize in the exhibition of contemporary American painting, Galerie Giroux Brussels and was selected as the first artist to be featured in the Blaffer Series of Southwestern Art published by the University of Texas Press. He received a Ford Foundation grant retrospective exhibition distributed by the American Federation of Arts of the South, Midwest and West.
His work has been featured in numerous publications, including “Lone Star Regionalism, the Dallas Nine and Their Circle” by Rick Stewart, published by Texas Monthly Press; “Pecos to Rio Grande, Interpretations of Far West Texas by Eighteen Artists”, published by Texas A&M University Press; “The Texas Gulf Coast, Interpretations by Nine Artists, published by Texas A&M University Press, and Art for History’s Sake, The Texas Collection of the Witte Museum by Cecilia Steinfeldt, published by the Texas State Historical Association. In addition, he was honored by a resolution passed by the Texas House of Representatives and signed by then-Governor George W. Bush for his longstanding contributions to the art world and for his exemplary work as an educator.
In addition to being held in numerous private collections, his work is included in many public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the MH DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, the Fort Worth Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Marion Kugler Museum of Art, McNay Art Institute of San Antonio, Museum of Modern Art Rio de Janeiro, Museum of Modern Art New York, Phillips Gallery Washington, D.C., Southern Methodist University Dallas, Tulane University, New Orleans, University of Alabama, University of Nebraska, University of Texas at Austin, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, and the Whitney Memorial Museum San Antonio.
Mr. Spruce continued to paint and exhibit until he was 88 years old. He infused his paintings with a sense of music and poetry. In many cases, he could identify the exact location he translated into paint by describing the time of day, weather, light, and where he was standing when he looked at it. His paintings are rich in color, texture and mood, conveying power and meaning. He was an extremely productive artist who painted mostly landscapes, although he occasionally painted fascinating people, birds and animals.
Mr. Yalina was particularly fond of trees, of which he said, “each one has its own personality.” In addition, he appreciated nature, including mountains, cacti, birds, animals, the ocean, rocks, rocky terrain, the sky, and storms. He treasured all things Celtic/Irish, was fascinated by languages and different cultures, and enjoyed good music, Yeats, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and other good literature. Teaching was his strong suit and many former students kept in touch throughout his long life.
