STC to display Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy
South Texas College’s Pecan Campus Library will present “Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy,” an exhibition created by the Wittliff Collections at the Texas State University-San Marcos Alkek Library and presented in partnership with Humanities Texas, the state affiliate for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This exhibition is made possible in part by a We the People grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The exhibit will be on display from June 16 to July 28, 2014 at the Pecan Campus Library Rainbow Room, located at 3201 W. Pecan Blvd. in McAllen. Admission is free and open to the public.
In the early 1970s, noted Texas historian Joe Frantz offered Bill Wittliff a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit a ranch in Northern Mexico where the vaqueros still worked cattle in traditional ways. Wittliff photographed the vaqueros as they went about daily chores that had changed little since the first Mexican cow herders learned to work cattle from a horse’s back. Wittliff captured a way of life that now exists only in memory and in the photographs included in this exhibition.
The exhibition features photographs with bilingual narrative text that reveal the muscle, sweat and drama that went into roping a calf in thick brush or breaking a wild horse in the saddle.
STC’s Library Art Gallery exhibits regional, national and international artwork, explores new visions and theories of creativity, and introduces innovative artistic expressions to the South Texas region.
For more information, contact Dawn Haughey at 956-872-3488, libraryart@southtexascollege.edu or visit http://lag.southtexascollege.edu.
