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Oscar E. Berninghaus
1874-1952

Berninghaus is definitely not a Texas Hill Country painter. His two works in the Davis Collection show the endless flat horizon of the Great Plains and are wonderful contrasts to the numerous Hill Country images, Berninghaus was a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists and was mainly self-taught. He apprenticed as a printer, where he learned to draw and to work with color, lessons that would later be translated into his well executed and gently colored landscapes. -RC


'Winter in the Panhandle'
Oil on canvas, 30" x 40'
1928 Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibition 
Honorable Mention Oscar E. Berninghaus, 'Winter in the Panhandle' 1928 [5K] 


Winter in the Panhandle is the only work from the 1928 competition t depict a winter scene. Painted mainly in whites and grays, the landscape, buildings, and sky are all frozen in place. Even the cattle are unmoving, for the moment. The painting has elegant compositional elements, the barbed wire fence drawing the viewer's eye to the snow-blanketed buildings, which are all dwarfed by the expanse of the vast Texas sky. -RC
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'Cotton Picking'
Oil on canvas, 30" x 40'
1929 Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibition
Awarded Second Prize, Group 3: Cotton Fields Oscar E. Berninghaus - 'Cotton Picking', 1929 [7K] 


Cotton Picking portrays the same Texas landscape after it has awakened from the winter cold and is now bathed in light partially obscured by big billowing clouds. The clouds do not give hope for relief from the heat, just as the gray sky in Winter in the Texas Panhandle does not foreshadow relief from the cold. unlike the other paintings of cotton picking in the collection, Berninghaus chose to show the great expanse of the Texas landscape, while the numerous figures and animals and the wagon create a panorama typical of the artist's works.  -RC
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'Peaceful Life on the Ranch'
1929 Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibition
Awarded Third Prize, Group 2: Ranch Life
O.S. Berninghaus, 'Peaceful Life on the Ranch', 1929 [7K]

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