James Surls

James Arthur Surls was born April 19, 1943, in Terrell, Texas. His father Joe William Surls was a carpenter and a cattle breeder.{{Cite book|last=Gershon|first=Pete|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljBpDwAAQBAJ|title=Collision: The Contemporary Art Scene in Houston, 1972–1985|date=2018-09-13|publisher=Texas A&M University Press|isbn=978-1-62349-632-6|location=|pages=251–255|language=en}} His mother Martha Lucille Surls (née Ramsey) had been made an honorary Cherokee Nation elder as one of "The Wisdom Givers".{{Cite web|last=Klaasmeyer|first=Kelly|date=2005-11-03|title=Spirit of Splendora|url=https://www.houstonpress.com/arts/spirit-of-splendora-6547730|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-03|website=Houston Press|quote=Surls grew up in East Texas, and his mother, an elder in the Cherokee Nation, was interested in Native American ritual. His father was a carpenter.}}{{Cite book|last1=Surls|first1=James|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xt1KAQAAIAAJ|title=James Surls: From the Heartland|last2=Kalil|first2=Susie|last3=Sims|first3=Patterson|date=2009|publisher=Grace Museum|isbn=978-0-9823093-0-8|location=|pages=99–100|language=en}} He was raised in Malakoff, Texas, and spend much of his childhood helping his dad with chopping wood and building wooden structures.{{Cite web|date=2018-12-06|title=A Portrait of the Artist As an Old Man|url=https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/james-surls/|access-date=2021-02-03|website=Texas Monthly|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=James Surls|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/james-surls-4714|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-03|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum|language=en-US}} Surls attended Malakoff High School. After high school he attended Henderson County Junior College and transferred to a junior college in San Diego. While in San Diego he received notification of the military draft and had to return to Texas to file for deferment.

Surls earned a BS degree in 1966 from Sam Houston State University. He continued his studies and received a MFA degree in 1968 from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he studied sculpture under Julius Schmidt.{{Cite web|last=Suess|first=Susan Elaine|date=1985|title=An Analysis of the Changes that Occurred During a Decade in the Sculpture of James Surls|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LvKfwgEACAAJ|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-03|website=Google Books|publisher=North Texas State University}}

He taught art at Southern Methodist University, and University of Houston. Students of Surls included artists Mary Jenewein, Bernard Brunon, Peter McClennan, Robert Graham, Mark Diamond, Robert McCoy, Chris Huestis, Diane Falkenhagen, Donald Woodman, and others.

He is best known for large sculptures that are roughly hewn and derive much of their power from a close connection to nature and raw materials.Honolulu Museum of Art, wall label, Male Figure by James Surls, 1989, oak, pine and steel, accession 2016-42-03 His drawings and prints are largely monotone. Surls' work is particularly organic and primal. Having built a career in the 1980s and 1990s as a Texas artist, Surls relocated to a Colorado ranch and removed his work from for-profit galleries.

In 2009, five Surls bronze-and-steel bouquets were set up on Park Avenue by the New York City Parks Public Art Program and the fund for Park Avenue.

Surls has his work in various public museum collections including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Cranbrook Art Museum,{{Cite web|date=2016-04-24|title=James Surls|url=https://cranbrookartmuseum.org/artwork/james-surls/|access-date=2021-02-03|website=Cranbrook Art Museum}} Dallas Museum of Art,[http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/surls_james.html James Surls in ArtCyclopedia] Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University, among many others.

Surls has three daughters from his first marriage to Martha Ann Gebhart from 1965 to 1972. His second marriage was to Linda Samuels, she was from New England and they had met at Cranbrook Academy of Art.{{Cite book|last1=Sultan|first1=Terrie|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NwOUlHQpeyAC|title=James Surls: The Splendora Years, 1977-1997|last2=Surls|first2=James|last3=Heartney|first3=Eleanor|date=2005-09-01|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-70992-8|location=|pages=95|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Glentzer|first=Molly|date=2016-11-04|title=James Surls' Splendora blossoms again|url=https://www.chron.com/culture/main/article/James-Surls-Spledora-blossoms-again-an-art-center-10593515.php|access-date=2021-02-03|website=Chron|language=en-US}} His third marriage was in 1978 to Charmaine Locke in Liberty, Texas, she was a former student of his at Southern Methodist University.{{Cite web|last=Kalil|first=Susie|date=June 16, 2020|title=It's Personal: A Conversation with James Surls|url=https://sculpturemagazine.art/its-personal-a-conversatiocn-with-james-surls/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=Sculpture magazine}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2005|title=James A Surls in the Texas, U.S., Marriage Index, 1824-2014|url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8795/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=Ancestry.com|publisher=State of Texas}}

In 1997, he moved from Splendora, Texas, to Carbondale, Colorado.

• Points of View (Surls), (1991), outdoor sculpture, Houston, Texas

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• Acconci, Vito, Visions of paradise, installations by Vito Acconci, David Ireland, and James Surls, March 24 through April 29, 1984, Cambridge, Mass., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984.
• Auping, Michael, Structure to resemblance, work by eight American sculptors, June 13 – August 23, 1987, Buffalo, N.Y., Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1987.
• Graze, Sue, Visions: James Surls, 1974–1984, Dallas, Tex., Dallas Museum of Art, 1984.
• Locke, Charmaine, Leonard Shlain, and James Surls, Finding balance, reconciling the masculine/feminine in contemporary art and culture, Houston, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, 2006.
• Sultan, Terrie & Eleanor Heartney, James Surls, the Splendora years, 1977–1997, Austin, TX, University of Texas Press, 2005.
• Surls, James, James Surls, embracing paradox, St. Louis, MO, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 2000.
• Surls, James, Jeanne Lil Chvosta, & Fronia W. Simpson, James Surls, in the Meadows and beyond, Dallas, Tex., Meadows Museum, 2004.
• {{Cite book|last=Yapelli|first=Tina|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-UhOAAAAYAAJ|title=Face to Face, Back to Back: Jo Harvey Allen, Terry Allen, Milano Kazanjian, Judith E. Simonian, Charmaine Locke, James Surls|publisher=The Gallery, California State University, Fullerton|year=1984|isbn=9780935314274|location=|pages=}}
• {{Cite book|last=Zimmer|first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jaFJAQAAIAAJ|title=Ancient Inspirations, Six Figurative Sculptors: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Reuben Kadish, Diana Moore, Linda Peer, Italo Scanga, James Surls|publisher=Independent Curators|year=1987|isbn=9780916365226|location=|pages=}}

• {{Official website|https://jamessurls.com/}}
• [http://www.texasarchive.org/library/index.php/Jackelope Jackelope], from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image

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Category:1943 births

Category:Living people

Category:Sam Houston State University alumni

Category:Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni

Category:20th-century American sculptors

Category:American modern sculptors

Category:People from Montgomery County, Texas

Category:People from Garfield County, Colorado

Category:People from Terrell, Texas

Category:Artists from Texas

Category:People from Henderson County, Texas

Category:21st-century American sculptors

Category:Sculptors from Texas