West Texas State Teachers College
Robinson not only proved to be a talented artist, but also a dedicated mentor and teacher. She taught public school in Missouri before teaching interior design at Guilford College and Columbia University, she also taught art at Ohio University at Athens. She became interim head of the art department at West Texas State Teachers College in 1925, then art department head at Pennsylvania State Teachers College at Bloomburg in 1926.
She returned to West Texas University in 1927 and headed the art department until 1955 when she stepped down to focus on teaching. She had fallen in love with the Texas plains a few years before: “I like the brilliant coloring and striking contrast of bright sun and cool shadows of the southwest.”
Robinson created the Palo Duro Canyon School of Art in 1936 under the auspices of West Texas State. The first years of the school began with six-week sessions, which were later expanded to twelve weeks. It was held in Palo Duro for six consecutive summers and drew students from across the country before closing due to World War II.
The purpose of the Palo Duro School was to capitalize on the exceptional beauty and grandeur of the canyon. The art colony built a tented village in which teachers and pupils lived and learned 24 hours a day throughout the summer.
Classes covered painting in watercolor and oils, ceramics, and crafts. Recreation in the Canyon included horseback riding and hiking and evening lectures. Some students came from as far as Pennsylvania to paint in what was considered the “Grand Canyon of Texas.” In addition to herself, Robinson brought in visiting artists to teach courses at the school and concluded every summer with a field trip to Taos and Santa Fe.
Michael Grauer stated that “no artist or art teacher before or since had a greater impact in the Texas Panhandle than Isabel Robinson."