West Texas Landscape

Harry Carnohan

1934

Oil on Masonite

Dallas Museum of Art

Arguably Harry Carnohan’s most celebrated work, West Texas Landscape depicts an isolated, barren wasteland. While seemingly uninhabited, the scene’s elements of desertion and emptiness do hint at a once lively human presence. Discarded objects flank a pair of tire tracks leading to a fence whose wire railing has uncoiled from its posts. Small sprouts, carefully lined up, cast prominent shadows on the dry, clay soil—hopeful indications of growth and rebirth amid the arid landscape, or dismal symbols of Depression-era realism. Carnohan favored modern styles and trends more than his Dallas Nine contemporaries, and remained an active ar