Buck Winn’s Mural – The History of Ranching
3 sections of a 280 foot mural of Buck Winn’s A History of Ranching now displayed at Texas State University in San San Marcos, Texas
Buck Winn- A Quick Look
Considered a true renaissance man of his generation, James Buchanan (Buck) Winn, Jr., was a Texas-born muralist, sculptor, architect, and inventor. He has also received the titles of genius, artist, innovator, adventurer.
During the 1930s Winn painted murals for the Dallas Medical Arts Building, Highland Park Village Theater, Titche-Goettinger Building, Burrus Flour Mills, Telanews Theater, Hillcrest Mausoleum, the Sylvan Supper Club in Arlington, the Driscoll Hotel in Corpus Christi, the Blackstone Hotel in Fort Worth, and the Commercial National Bank of Shreveport, Louisiana (restored in 1987).
For the Texas Centennial and World’s Fair in Dallas in 1936, Winn assisted Eugene Savage to produce the murals for the Hall of State along with many other features in Fair Park. Winn’s murals depict actual and mythical elements of Texas and Southwestern exploration, history, and culture.
A History of Ranching Mural
Originally commissioned by the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio, Texas, above is a photograph of a single panel of Buck Winn’s 280-foot mural A History of Ranching, now hanging in the Wimberley Community Center.
In 1940 Winn and his family moved to a ranch in Wimberley, Texas, where he continued to produce other murals in his huge studio/living room for commercial, financial, and educational sites throughout Texas, including a 280-foot mural commissioned in 1950 by Pearl Brewery in San Antonio titled The History of Ranching. At the time it was believed to be the longest mural in the world, keeping alive the bragging rights of Texan’s who claim ‘everything’s bigger in Texas.’
In the late 20th century new owners of the Pearl Complex decided on a major remodel/renovation, and when the renovations occurred, Buck Winn’s mural was taken down and disappeared from the public eye for almost 30 years. The mural was unceremoniously ripped off the walls in sections, rolled up like a rug, and hidden away, untagged and unprotected, in a storage shed on the brewery grounds. and stuffed into a poor-quality storage situation. There it sat for decades, out of sight and forgotten by almost everyone. If not for the efforts of one individual, the mural might have been lost forever. Dr. Dorey Schmidt, a resident of Wimberley and founding member of WIC, was able to not only track down the mural, but acquire it so that Buck Winn’s work could be put back on public display. Thanks to the amazing efforts of Dr. Schmidt, the Wimberley Institute of Cultures two sections of this important, historic mural can be seen in Johnson Hall at the Wimberley Community Center.
To read the amazing story about Dr. Dorey Schmidt’s recovery of the Buck Winn mural, in her own words, please click on this link.
Originally commissioned by the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio, Texas, below are photographs of three additional panels of Buck Winn’s 280-foot mural A History of Ranching, now hanging in the Wimberley Community Center.
