The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002 Page: 12
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12 Southwestern Historical Quarterly July
and courage, he enjoyed the company of old friends and was flattered
when a new generation of admirers discovered his work. It was espe-
cially flattering when one of those admirers was the governor of Texas.
And when that governor accepted the Republican nomination for the
American presidency, he paraphrased a Tom Lea line about living on
the sunrise side of the mountain. "It is a place to see the day that is
coming, not to see the day that has gone."
By this time Lea had closed the backyard studio to which he had
repaired every morning for four decades, dressed in white shirt and tie.
His art was not only his passion, but his business as well, and he
approached it with respect by showing up for work in proper attire. The
studio was converted to living quarters for a housekeeper. Then, in the
spring of 2000 Public Television broadcast a documentary entitled
"They Drew Fire" featuring the contribution of the World War II artist-
correspondents. Lea declined to be interviewed, but his work was strewn
throughout the one-hour length of the progam, instantly recognizable
and distinctive from all the others. Simultaneously with the PBS network
production, KTSM, the local NBC affiliate, produced a thirty-minute
documentary, called "Brush Strokes of Life," about Lea's remarkable
career. The station replayed the program the week of his death.
On Wednesday, January 24, 2oo0, Lea slipped and fell in the bath-
room of his home at 2401 Savannah in El Paso. Several ribs were bro-
ken and one penetrated a lung. He was taken the following day to the
Sierra Medical Center, where his condition worsened. He died there
early Monday afternoon, January 29. The next day the local paper,
which exercises remarkable restraint in its coverage of area deaths, gave
the news a six-column banner on the front page. Memorial services
attended by a crowd of five hundred were held at the First Baptist
Church on Friday, February 2.
J. Frank Dobie once wrote that "The only art worth an Indian fig that
the Southwest will ever have will be art and literature growing out of the
Southwest's own rocks and soil, burned by its own suns, sifted by its own
winds, given perspective by its own spaces, and humanized and drama-
tized in the personalities that have made up its population-people who
belong, like Tom Lea, to the land."
Fifteen years after these words were written, El Pasoans seemed to
have recognized the gift that had been conferred by their native son.
In 1968 the public library created the Lea-Hertzog Room for its spe-
cial collections, although that room now appears to have been disman-
tled, the collections dispersed, and the designation abandoned. The
new, downtown El Paso Museum of Art has its Tom Lea Gallery. The
Texas Institute of Letters honored Lea in 1989 with its first lifetime
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002, periodical, 2002; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101222/m1/20/?q=%22oil-gas%22: accessed July 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Texas State Historical Association.