Robert Onderdonk, Fall of the Alamo, (1903). Oil on canvas.
Modern Times Lecture Series
Robert and Julian Onderdonk
Emily Neff, Ph.D.
SUnday, February 2, 2025 | 2:30pm - 4:00pm
**Doors at 2:00pm; Lecture at 2:30PM
In Person and online!
Tickets
$10 General Admission | $5 Student | $0 NCHM Member
Robert Jenkins Onderdonk (1852-1917) and Robert Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922) were two of Texas’ most celebrated artists in the early 20th century. Robert Onderdonk was born in Maryland and trained at the National Academy of Design and Art Students League prior to moving to Texas in 1878 where he quickly became a popular teacher and an advocate for the arts across Texas. He worked as a portraitist, but also painted landscape scenes, and is best known today for his painting Fall of the Alamo (1903), which today hangs at the Governor’s Mansion. His son Julian followed in his father’s footsteps, training around the turn of the century with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League, prior to returning to Texas to become the state’s first prominent Impressionist landscape painter. This lecture will focus on the impact of both Robert and Julian Onderdonk on the development of the visual arts in Texas and the ways in which national trends came to the Lone Star State.
About the Speaker
Dr. Emily Neff
Dr. Emily Neff is the Kelso Director of the San Antonio Museum of Art. She holds a BA from Yale University and a MA and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to her time at SAMA, she was the Executive Director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Director and Chief Curator of the Fred Jones J. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, and was the founding Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Dr. Neff has organized scores of exhibitions and is author of, among other works, The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950 (2006) and American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World (2013). A highly-regarded Americanist, Neff contributed a major essay to Julian Onderdonk: A Catalogue Raisonné (2016).
Sponsor
For information on sponsorship opportunities contact Cristina Feldott, cfeldott@nchmuseum.org or call (512) 478-2335.