State Fair is a visual distillation of Arthur Grace's photographic odyssey through fairs in ten states—California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. Time and again, regardless of geographical location, Grace's images deftly capture the strange mixture of the traditional, the kitsch, and the off-the-wall that is unique to these annual gatherings, which began as a celebration of rural American life and have evolved into super-sized extravaganzas. State Fair is an exhibition by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin, presented in partnership with Humanities Texas. For further information regarding this event, please contact the Spellman Library of Forney History.
Events
July 19 - August 26, 2023
Exhibition
September 5–
October 17, 2023
October 17, 2023
Exhibition
In the early 1970s, Bill Wittliff visited 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 cowherders 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. This Humanities Texas traveling 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. For more information, contact the Plano Conservancy for Historic Preservation.
September 12–October 24, 2023
Exhibition
State Fair is a visual distillation of Arthur Grace's photographic odyssey through fairs in ten states—California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. Time and again, regardless of geographical location, Grace's images deftly capture the strange mixture of the traditional, the kitsch, and the off-the-wall that is unique to these annual gatherings, which began as a celebration of rural American life and have evolved into super-sized extravaganzas. State Fair is an exhibition by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin, presented in partnership with Humanities Texas. For further information regarding this event, please contact the Honey Grove Library & Learning Center.
March 30–
May 22, 2024
May 22, 2024
Exhibition
Melina Mara began photographing the thirteen women in the U.S. Senate in 2001, continuing as their number grew to fourteen in 2003. Changing the Face of Power: Women in the U.S. Senate, the exhibition based on her work, was created by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin, and is presented in partnership with the Humanities Texas traveling exhibitions program. For more information, please contact Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum.