Dancers---weekend good times in the dance hall. 26" x 18"
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Español
June 2, 2024
by Henry Vermillion
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Gold Miners, Leadville
36" x 43"
Adapted from a photo taken about 1895. Two unusual things: we don't usually think of Western types as cat lovers, but the cat was in the old photo. The other oddity: A man is holding up a paper---a legal document? Whatever it may be, the man clearly believes that the photo will record the text for history to see.
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Kermit, Texas
36" X40"
My family moved to Kermit when I was five. Kermit sits in an arid West Texas desert, hot, flat, and sandy. Oil and ranching were the two economic sources. My best friend there in the first and second grades was Brandon McReynolds. In the picture, Brandon and I are on the roof of a saddle shed, finding animals and people in the clouds, as kids do. Brandon had the great good fortune to live on his parent's ranch a few miles out of town. (My own father was only the owner of the local weekly newspaper.) In the picture, X marks the wooden house we lived in. The camper truck to the left is where the older neighbor boys taught us how sex works. On the upper left, frogs came out of the ranch's sandhills after a downpour of heavy summer rain. It really happened. Other events and happenings in Kermit are indicated in the picture. (Many, many years later, I found that Brandon was a member of the Texas Bronc Riders Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. The bucking horse in the middle of the picture is in his honor.)
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Law West of the Pecos
24" x 35"
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Judge Roy Bean (with the white beard) was the storied owner of the “Jersey Lily" Saloon in Langtry, Texas, on the Rio Grande, in the 1890s. A larger than life character, He held court in his saloon. He liked to call himself “The Hanging Judge", but, as a justice of the peace, he didn't have the legal power to hang anyone.
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Cowboy and Blond
20" x 24"
A fellow having a great time with a not-so-young hostess.
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Studio / Gallery Visits
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Henry Vermillion was born in El Paso, and grew up in small towns in Texas and New Mexico. He graduated from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, with degrees in English literature and biology. He studied Social Work in the MSW program at the University of Texas in Austin.
He is a U.S. Army veteran. In Raleigh, North Carolina, he was president of the non-profit Wake Visual Arts Association. In 1995, he was awarded the Raleigh Medal of the Arts.
In November of 1992, Henry, his wife Britt Zaist, and five other painters opened the co-op Galeriía Izamal, which, until its closing in January of 2022, was San Miguel's oldest art gallery.
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