Exhibition

Life Illustrated

Cartoons, illustrations, paintings, and prints by Aubrey Streater and his daughter, Susan Streater, made across more than 90 years.

Nov 5: Opening reception, Thursday, 6 to 8 p.m.
Dec 19: Last day of the show
90+: years of drawing by a father and daughter

258 Main Street, Lander. Free to walk into.

Questions about the show go to exhibition@landerartcenter.com. Need an accommodation to see it? Just ask, and there is no cost. How to ask.

The show

Poster for Life Illustrated: a white line drawing of a horse's head and flowing mane on a black ground — View the poster full size

On the walls

Aubrey Streater drew for the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Journal through the 1930s, when newspapers still relied on artists to picture the news. His cartoons, caricatures, and illustrations were drawn in pen and ink on Bristol board, ready for print, and they cover a decade that opened with the Great Depression and closed on the way to World War II.

Susan's own work begins in the early 2000s: paintings, drawings, and prints made by hand, some finished on the computer. Here the two bodies of work hang side by side, and many of Aubrey's cartoons still read as comment on the news today.

"At this exhibition you will be reminded that human beings haven't changed very much."

The artists

Cartoonist and illustrator

Aubrey Streater

Born 1908, Texas

Aubrey grew up in a family of farmers in a small Texas town and started school in a one-room schoolhouse. A few years after high school he went to the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio.

He spent the 1930s as a cartoonist and illustrator for the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Journal, in a career that ran 42 years.

Painter, illustrator, and dancer

Susan Streater

Born in Dallas, Texas

Susan became a professional dancer at 16 and moved to New York City, where she worked in musical theatre for more than 40 years. She studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan while dancing and singing, and learned to draw from her father's work.

For the last 25 years she has sold her originals and prints around the world, with the help of the internet.

In Susan's words

"I did not know the man very well, I knew the artist. Dedicated and skillful."
Susan Streater, on her father, who died when she was nineteen

Susan grew up thinking everyone could draw, because everyone in her house could. Her father believed it too: "He believed everyone could draw and all that was involved was teaching your hand to copy what your eye could see."

She often starts a piece on paper or canvas and finishes it on the computer, adding light, such as backlighting, that only a computer application can create. She compares it to "giving a microphone to a singer." She does not use artificial intelligence: "How do I express myself in the age of AI? I don't. I love each step of the process of creating something new with my own hands and imagination. That's the fun."