The Texas Panhandle and Beyond

1999.709.2.jpg

untitled [Palo Duro Canyon], no date, oil on canvas board

1995.36.1.jpg

untitled [Palo Duro Canyon), 1930, ink wash

Robinson's scenes depict locations throughout the U.S. and Europe, including many of the area around the town of Canyon, Texas. One location that she frequently revisited was Palo Duro Canyon, which has continued to be an inspiration for many West Texas artists due to its vibrant colors and natural beauty. Georgia O'Keeffe painted 51 watercolors of the canyon during her brief tenure at West Texas College.

2000.127.1.jpg

untitled [Hardwood Foundation, Taos], circa 1930, pencil on paper

Robinson's love of the Panhandle expanded to the entire Southwest. She was known to have painted scenes of the Arizona and New Mexico landscape in addition to her paintings of the Texas Panhandle: “I like best to paint out of doors from nature the adobe huts in their mountain settings of New Mexico and the windmills and ranchers’ shacks of the great Texas Plains." This untitled artwork is the only scene of Taos in the Isabel Robinson collection, as well as the only finished pencil drawing by the artist at PPHM.

Whatever the location, Robinson painted areas that she was fond of. Shirley Hall Keltner stated, “One of the things she loved about the panhandle was that out of nowhere one of these silos would appear. That was the way she worded it to me in about 1962 when I was at her place in Canyon... After she became ill and could no longer paint, we would go through all her paintings and she would tell me where she was when she painted them and why she loved that particular spot, etc.”

1999.633.4.jpg

A Home in the Land of the Sky, 1927, watercolor on paper (click on the image to see the ribbon this painting won in 1976)

Robinson won numerous awards during her career and exhibited all over the U.S. including Radio City Music Hall in New York. She had solo exhibitions at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum (1934), Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) and the Universtry of Alabama, among others.

She was a member of the Southern States Art League, the College Art Association, and numerous art and wildlife organizations. She was listed in "Who's Who in the Southwest," "Women of Distinction of America," and "Leading Women of America."

Robinson also helped organize the West Texas Art Exhibition at Fort Worth in 1939 in addition to organizing other annual regional art exhibitions.