Minor Regional Novelist
March 14 - May 23, 2026Nature of Things at 3002A Commerce St.
Exhibition Text
Nature of Things is excited to present our group exhibition, Minor Regional Novelist. The title was taken from Larry McMurtry’s sweatshirt that he wore in the 1960s and early 1970s (which was in turn taken from an early criticism of his own writing). The exhibition brings together artists from the Lone Star Regionalism era (the Dallas Nine and their circle), Texas folk art, and contemporary artists either working or originating from Texas, to consider both Regionalism as an artistic movement in the 1930s and 1940s, but also what it means to make work about a place, from a place—a reflection of life where you are living it.
The term “regional” when applied to artwork or artists, historically has had diminutive implications (the only worse title might be “parochial”) and was left for the misunderstandings or easy categorization of artwork made and seen outside of the largest coastal cultural hubs. Terry Allen once said about being pegged as a regionalist artist, “Now everybody thinks I’m a cowboy. Fuck that. I’m a dog.”