GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The only lithograph included in Alexandre Hogue’s Erosion Series, End of the Trail is one of the artist’s many meditations on the ecological destruction the Dust Bowl inflicted upon the Southwest in the 1930s. In this series, Hogue painted and etched in a self-described psychorealist style, arranging iconographic markers in a logical manner to imbue the work with a type of realism that would viscerally affect the viewer. A hyper, jarring reality is certainly achieved in the image of besieged earth in End of the Trail, which depicts the devastating effects of erosion, drought, and resulting dust storms on organic life in the Southwest.
In the foreground Hogue has assembled an emotive narrative filled with the symbols of deliberately misused land: a plow, dug into dry soil; a cattle’s skull, grimacing at its own fate; and fallen barbed wire, uncoiled from its posts and tangled in the dust. In the background, dunes of dry land reach far into the horizon, proving the dismal reality far beyond our picture plane. While there are no human figures in this print, Hogue has organized his composition to emphasize the effects of irresponsible human presence, and resulting destruction. These symbols include the plow, barbed wire fences, and unfertile, eroded soil. The artist considered the constant plowing of land and erection of barbed fences to be major contributors to the sober reality many farmers faced in the years following the Great Depression. With his title, End of the Trail, Hogue suggests not only that this arid scene is quite literally the end of the trail for the cow but also a metaphorical end for the farmer, whose drought-stricken land is and will be void of bounty.
Adapted from
- Erin Pinon, Label text, 2016
- Sue Canterbury, Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series, Label text, 2014.
NOTES
This note was originally created and submitted by Erin Pinon, summer 2016. I am removing the #draft tag and requesting that the content be pulled from Brain and the Google Docs routing process so that I can review formatting, tagging, and text. After review, the note will be retagged with #draft and proceed to be harvested, routed, and revised as usual. (EAS, 8/26/2016)
Created in 1936
Exhibition: Lone Star Regionalism :The Dallas Nine and their Circle 1928-1945, February 3, 1985-July 10, 1988
Adapted from
- Erin Pinon, Early Texas Art Research Associate, DMA label copy (1937.16), June 2016
- Sue Canterbury, "Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series" label copy (1937.16), January 2014.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location and place of origin: Texas (state/United States): TGN: 7007826
Place of origin: Southwest (general region/United States): TGN: 4010660
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Before 1937: Alexandre Hogue [1]
From 1937: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Lawrence S. Pollock Purchase Prize, Eighth Annual Dallas Allied Arts Exhibition, purchased from the artist. [2]
[1] The main source for this provenance was existing information in TMS (in Dallas Museum of Art Digital Collections Records Object Files). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.
[2] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.
AUDIO ASSETS
- 15662418: UMO [Caption: A Conversation on Alexandre Hogue]
- 16086093: UMO [Caption: Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series, Sue Canterbury]
- 27172833: UMO [Caption: Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series, Gallery Talk Andrea Severins-Goins]
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- End of the Trail was well received by critics and patrons alike, winning a Lawrence S. Pollock Purchase Prize at the Eighth Annual Allied Arts Exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art (then known as the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts) in 1937.
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 1937.16
Category
rules_operator
AND
General Description
The only lithograph included in Alexandre Hogue’s Erosion Series, End of the Trail is one of the artist’s many meditations on the ecological destruction the Dust Bowl inflicted upon the Southwest in the 1930s. In this series, Hogue painted and etched in a self-described psychorealist style, arranging iconographic markers in a logical manner to imbue the work with a type of realism that would viscerally affect the viewer. A hyper, jarring reality is certainly achieved in the image of besieged earth in End of the Trail, which depicts the devastating effects of erosion, drought, and resulting dust storms on organic life in the Southwest.
In the foreground Hogue has assembled an emotive narrative filled with the symbols of deliberately misused land: a plow, dug into dry soil; a cattle’s skull, grimacing at its own fate; and fallen barbed wire, uncoiled from its posts and tangled in the dust. In the background, dunes of dry land reach far into the horizon, proving the dismal reality far beyond our picture plane. While there are no human figures in this print, Hogue has organized his composition to emphasize the effects of irresponsible human presence, and resulting destruction. These symbols include the plow, barbed wire fences, and unfertile, eroded soil. The artist considered the constant plowing of land and erection of barbed fences to be major contributors to the sober reality many farmers faced in the years following the Great Depression. With his title, End of the Trail, Hogue suggests not only that this arid scene is quite literally the end of the trail for the cow but also a metaphorical end for the farmer, whose drought-stricken land is and will be void of bounty.
Adapted from
- Erin Pinon, Label text, 2016
- Sue Canterbury, Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series, Label text, 2014.
Fun Facts
- End of the Trail was well received by critics and patrons alike, winning a Lawrence S. Pollock Purchase Prize at the Eighth Annual Allied Arts Exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art (then known as the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts) in 1937.
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Notes
This note was originally created and submitted by Erin Pinon, summer 2016. I am removing the #draft tag and requesting that the content be pulled from Brain and the Google Docs routing process so that I can review formatting, tagging, and text. After review, the note will be retagged with #draft and proceed to be harvested, routed, and revised as usual. (EAS, 8/26/2016)
Created in 1936
Exhibition: Lone Star Regionalism :The Dallas Nine and their Circle 1928-1945, February 3, 1985-July 10, 1988
Adapted from
- Erin Pinon, Early Texas Art Research Associate, DMA label copy (1937.16), June 2016
- Sue Canterbury, "Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series" label copy (1937.16), January 2014.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location and place of origin: Texas (state/United States): TGN: 7007826
Place of origin: Southwest (general region/United States): TGN: 4010660
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Before 1937: Alexandre Hogue [1]
From 1937: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Lawrence S. Pollock Purchase Prize, Eighth Annual Dallas Allied Arts Exhibition, purchased from the artist. [2]
[1] The main source for this provenance was existing information in TMS (in Dallas Museum of Art Digital Collections Records Object Files). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.
[2] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.
AUDIO ASSETS
- 15662418: UMO [Caption: A Conversation on Alexandre Hogue]
- 16086093: UMO [Caption: Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series, Sue Canterbury]
- 27172833: UMO [Caption: Alexandre Hogue: The Erosion Series, Gallery Talk Andrea Severins-Goins]
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
Apply To
Objects
number
Equals
1937.16
source file
object_notes_1_a-0102.xml.nores