The following is from Phyllis Servello:

I was fortunate enough to study with Mr. Travis from the ages of 16 to 19. I know that he painted some panoramas at the Museum of Natural History at the Texas State Fairgrounds. He also has a mural in the entryway to the Hall of State at the fairgrounds.

He gave me lessons from his home, which was literally filled with all different types of his artwork (masks, wood carvings, paintings, etc.).

He had given me one of his lithographs, but unfortunately it was stolen. He also drew a portrait of me in charcoal and had given it to me. I believe his grand-daughter is now in possession of it.

He told me that his father had disapproved of his career choice. His early works were destroyed in a house fire (his ex-mother-in-laws house). His second wife was a violinist who played for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

He was an excellent painter, a wonderful teacher, and a kind and interesting man. I treasure the fact that he was my teacher. I fondly remember my time spent under his tutelage.

Born and reared in Dallas, Travis attended public schools there. In his youth he received instruction from R. Jerome Hill, Florence Rhine, Hans Krunz-Meyer, and Max Hagendorn. At the urging of Clyde Giltner Chandler, Travis enrolled in 1909 in the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied five consecutive years before becoming an associate instructor at the institute in 1914. His teachers included Kenyon Cox, Charles Francis Browne, Ralph Elmer Clarkson, Harry Mills Walcott, and Joaquin Sorollo y Bastida. Travis worked briefly thereafter as a commercial artist and as an instructor at the Chicago Commercial Art School.

In 1924 Travis moved to Dallas with his wife, Kathryne Hail Travis, one of his former students whom he had married in 1916. In 1926, with James Wadden, the couple founded the Dallas Art Institute, and later, in Cass, Arkansas, the Ozark Summer School of Painting, which they operated for three summers. Kathryne and Olin Travis were divorced in 1934. His second wife was Josephine Oliver.

For many years Olin Travis was head of the Dallas Art Institute (1926 - 1941). He painted along the Texas coast on several trips around 1930, and in the summer of 1933, he traveled to West Texas in Frank Reaugh’s sketching caravan.

Travis taught two years as a guest instructor at the San Antonio Art Institute (1944 - 1945), and a year at Austin College, Sherman (1951). He also taught several summers at the Texas Artists Camp at Christoval. A prolific painter, he recorded landscapes, Dallas scenes, and figures from the 1920s until his death in Dallas. The Dallas Public Library’s Technicolor film entitled Olin Travis: A Visit to His Studio shows the artist at work and many of his paintings.

Memberships:
Dallas Art Association; Lone Star Printmakers

Exhibited:
Annual Exhibition by Texas Artists, Fort Worth Art Museum; State Fair of Texas; Dallas (solo), 1926; Dallas Allied Arts Exhibition; Highland Park Art Gallery (solo), 1929; Southern States Art League, 1932; Denver Art Museum (solo), 1933; Modern Museum of Art, 1933; Art Institute of Dallas (solo), 1934; Dallas Museum of Fine Art (solo), 1940; Texas Artists Exhibition, Nashville, 1927; Texas Centennial Exhibition, Dallas, 1936; Greater Texas and Pan-American Exposition, Dallas, 1937; Annual Texas Print Exhibitions, Dallas, 1944-1945; Texas Fine Arts Association, 1928; Greenville, 1924; Lone Star Printmakers, 1938, 1940; Texas General Exhibitions, 1943-1944; Texas Panorama Exhibition

Collections:
Belo Corporation; Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum; Dallas Museum of Art

Murals:
Hall of State, Dallas; Love Field

Submitted by Anne R. Kelly, ISA AM
Gallery Director & Fine Art Appraiser
David Dike Fine Art, LLC

The source of this biography on Olin Herman Travis (Am. 1888-1975) is Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists by John and Deborah Powers.


Listed:
Dictionary of Texas Artists 1800-1945
Who Was Who in American Art