Dalhart Windberg Texas Artist
"Bluebonnets don’t grow under trees," the artist Dalhart Windberg said, when asked why the ribbon of blue he was painting stopped short of an oak tree. "There isn’t enough light under there."
Windberg was conducting one of his workshops in Salado, Texas. About 20 or so mostly middle-aged, aspiring painters sat in folding chairs taking notes as a picturesque Texas hillside materialized in front of them.
"Unbelievable," one woman said sotto voce to no one in particular. "Amazing," whispered another.
Painstaking attention to detail is one of 75-year-old Windberg’s hallmarks and is one of the reasons why his work has fetched prices as high as $75,000.
"I observe everything," Windberg says later over a chicken-fried steak. "Like when bluebonnets are blooming, oak trees are pollinating and are golden, not green."
Rendering foliage, waves and animal life with near-photographic accuracy, a three-by-three-inch square of canvas is a full day’s work, which explains why he only paints 10-12 smooth-brush paintings a year.
Even if you think you’re not familiar with Dalhart’s work, you probably are. His paintings adorn living rooms, dentists’ offices and doctors’ waiting rooms across the country.
"Any place you need to be de-stressed, you’ll find us," jokes Chris Schmidt, who for more than 20 years has worked closely with Windberg at his print-making company, Windberg Enterprises Inc. Windberg’s landscapes have been featured on the interior sets of TV soaps and in an episode of Seinfeld. (Inside a funeral home, of course.)
Woodland Reflections, his "Mona Lisa," as Schmidt refers to it, has sold more than two million prints, making it one of the most reproduced images in America.
It’s a heady time at Windberg Enterprises, as recent digital-scanning technology has allowed Schmidt and his staff to make color-correct, high-resolution prints of Windberg’s works. Owners of Windberg classics, such as Gulf Seascapes Catching a Morning Breeze and End of the Run, are ordering vibrant replacements of their faded prints.
Despite his work’s ubiquity and the success of Windberg Enterprises, the artist emanates gentle modesty. Bespectacled, neatly dressed in black pants and black collared shirt, with a full head of silver hair that he combs every half hour or so, he refutes the artist-as-wild-man cliché. He keeps disciplined hours, working 9-to-5 each day, and his studio is a study in organization. Reference books are neatly shelved, the thousands of slides he’s taken on his many road trips across America are divided by subject, and the jars of paint brushes and pigments are labeled in plastic lettering. It’s the habitat of a focused artist. Art, it’s safe to say, is Windberg’s life.
"If you go out to lunch with him," Schmidt says, "you better be ready to talk art!"
While proud, Windberg and his staff are candid about his artistic accomplishments. No one pretends he’s Van Gogh.
"His work is like penny loafers," explains Schmidt. "Not trendy, but always in style."
Growing up in Goliad, Windberg began painting when he was in grade school. When his teacher noticed him drawing instead of taking notes, his mother arranged to have him take painting classes at a nearby Catholic school. Windberg later studied under acclaimed artist Simon Michaels who became an inspiration and long-time mentor to the budding artist.
After attending Rockport School of Arts, Windberg joined the army and while in Germany received a graduate education from the Old Masters, spending his R&R wandering the halls of the great museums of Europe, gazing at Rembrandts, Caravaggios and Vermeers.
Windberg was in awe. How did they achieve such soft detail? How did they make their canvases so smooth? While the complex canvas preparation processes of the Old Masters may have been lost to time, Windberg set out to find a way to prepare a canvas so that it would be smooth enough to achieve the detail of a Ruisdael. The search would take him 18 years.
When he returned from his military service, he worked as a sign painter while also teaching, painting in his spare time and raising a family. Married to his high school sweetheart Evelyn, the couple had two sons, Michael and Richard. Evelyn runs the business end of Windberg Enterprises, assisted by Richard. Mike has recently taken up painting. For the Windbergs, painting is a family business.
In August of 1966, Windberg made what he describes as the "toughest decision of my life." He became a full-time artist, a decision he’s never second-guessed.
A few years later, he finally concocted the "Dalhart Technique"—a complex method of preparing the canvas that involves the application of multiple layers of acrylic modeling paste, then sanding it down to achieve an extremely fine-grained texture to which his tiny brushstrokes will adhere.
Windberg's canvases always reward a closer look. At first glance Woodland Reflections is a depiction of two deer drinking from a creek in a sun-lit clearing. Hidden within the foliage, however, are 26 different "critters," to use Windberg’s term. In much of his work, there is more than initially meets the eye.