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This is
this is an untitled piece, it's a landscape. Ummm, it's been in our collection for
many many years. Its not particularly interesting as far as the
subject matter. The the reason I chose this as one of my favorite pieces was because
the
mystery that was unraveling when we started doing research on this
piece, um, the artist
in our records we had we had no background on the artist that was listed as
um, GW Conroy...
and there's an inscription on the back that we had to do some more research on that was
a complete dead-end.
We finally got a break in the case very recently
when we uncovered another artist by the name of Conroy who just happened to have
the exact same signature.
Well turns out we had the wrong artist
credited for this piece it was in fact a
GT Conroy which makes all the difference in the world.
He actually is a little more well-known than someone who doesn't exist. (laugh)
Ah, the very interesting part of this
is not on the front, it is in fact
written on back of the canvas a little poem...
well...(footsteps) a little...
inscription to a mystery woman b- from the artist it's uh--
To Miss Texas and
we can't make out the first word, but the rest of it says, "Gift
as a solace on the anniversary of her one tragic mistake.
May eleventh 1921." Here's the kicker...
The Miss Texas pageants as they exist today today
didn't start until 1936. So, we did some more digging.
the Miss America pageant which had Miss, a Miss Texas in it
didn't get started until 1921. So.....
and later in the year than this was inscribed, so Miss
Texas must have been some kind of pet name for this woman...um
the artist is in fact out of New York
so he, at some point, came to visit Texas
or knew this Miss Texas person uh, and
I, we're kind of guessing they had some kind of wild fling and
she turned him down when he proposed....
That's the theory we're running with anyway. (laugh)
We've had a lot of fun speculating over what this great
tragic love story might be, um, and this is something only
only someone who works in the museum would know about because just looking at it it's a
very sim- very simple uh, landscape
with no...no great intrigue.
If we look, we might be able to see a
little bit...it's very faint
we had to look at it--look under it with blacklight, there the top corner
it's "To Miss Texas on the anniversary of her one great tragedy"
signed by the artist.
Unfortunately the piece does need some repair so it's not seeing a lot of exhibition time...
but, nonetheless it's still one of my favorite pieces
just because of the fun we had researching the story behind that inscription.