The G.O.A.T. Raffle
A chance to win G.O.A.T. art and support the Surls + Locke Museum of Texas Art.
The Surls + Locke Museum of Texas Art is celebrating the opening of its inaugural exhibition Heard of G.O.A.T.s with a fine art raffle featuring three exceptional original artworks generously donated by Billy Hassell and James Surls.
This is your opportunity to support the founding of a world-class museum dedicated to Texas art and take home an unforgettable piece of art.
Drawing times:
Prize #1 - April 25, 2025 @ 8:00 PM CTD
Prizes #2 and #3 - April 26, 2025 @ 5:00 PM CTD
Each ticket you purchase enters you to win any of the three artworks. The more you purchase, the higher your chance to win, and the more you support S+L MoTA.
Tickets start at $25.
About the artworks
Billy Hassell
Canary, 2018
3 Color lithograph
12 x 12 inches (image size)
18 x 15 inches (paper size)
Edition of 20
Value: $1,800
Drawing for Prize #1: April 25 at 8:00 PM
LEARN MORE about Billy
The idea for the Canary lithograph was inspired by a quote by Kurt Vonegut, referring to artists and the role of art. The quote goes something like this - paraphrasing - “I sometimes wonder what the use of art is. The best thing I can come up with is what I call the ‘canary in the coalmine theory of art.’” This theory says that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are super sensitive. They keel over like canaries in poison coalmines long before more robust-types realize there is any danger whatsoever.’ I produced the canary while I was in residence as a visiting artist in Cortland college in upstate New York in the fall of 2018. It's a three color lithograph that started with a traditional black and white drawing with a grease pencil on a stone, with two aluminum plate drawings added for color. One in warm grey and one a blend of orange to yellow for the canary. Master printer, Charles Heasley, professor of printmaking at Cortland college, assisted.
Billy Hassell
Wild Turkey, East Texas, 2018
Color lithograph
24 x 22 inches
Edition of 30 + 5APs
Value: $2,500
Drawing for Prize #2: April 26 at 5:00 PM
LEARN MORE about Billy
The Wild Turkey, East Texas color lithograph is a celebration of the flora and fauna of East Texas. It features front and center an eastern wild turkey along with its neighbors. Clockwise: a red fox, a pileated woodpecker, an eastern box turtle, a yellow swallowtail butterfly, an opossum, a northern mocking bird, a great horned owl, and a summer tanager. In many ways it was inspired by a summer I spent after high school, before going away to college, working on a forestry project in East Texas, just outside of Nacedogeous on the angelina river. It’s the fifth image from a suite of five color lithographs commissioned by the Texas Park and Wildlife foundation to commemorate Wildlife and Habitat conservation initiatives throughout the state of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. It was produced as a part of Texas Parks and Wildlife promotional campaign referred to as “Keeping It Wild” in collaboration with master printer Peter Webb at Lucky Strike Press in Austin, TX.
James Surls
Walking Flower — Maquette, 2024
Basswood and stainless steel
24 x 22 x 9.5 inches
Value: $25,000
Drawing for Prize #3: April 26 at 5:00 PM
LEARN MORE about James
Flowers walk, flowers run, flowers climb, flowers crawl. The movement of flowers is something that nature takes care of. This walking flower piece is actually the beginning part of a spiral. There's a lot of seed pods that fall within that visual genre. They'll bloom, come to blossom, they'll make a seed. They'll fall to the earth, and they'll fall in a swirling spiral and then land and stick. It makes sense that they have the ability to somehow or another make their way into the earth. Some flower seeds actually, in essence, do walk. I've done a whole series of sculptures based around the fact that I think flowers walk.
About the Artists
Billy Hassell has been making nature inspired paintings and lithographs for more than 25 years. His colorful and expressive art works, frequently featuring birds and indigenous plants and animals, have been exhibited nationwide and are included in the permanent collections of the Houston Museum of Art, the Menil Collection, the Fort Worth Modern, The Dallas Museum of Art, the Tyler Museum of Art and numerous other public and private collections. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Hudson River Museum, The Art Museum of Santa Fe, the Museum of American Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and has had solo exhibitions at the Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas and the Tyler Museum, Tyler, Texas. Articles on his work have appeared in ArtNews, Southwest Art and the New York Times. He has been commissioned to produce etchings and lithographs for The Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation. He currently serves on the board of the Big Bend Conservancy resides in Fort Worth, Texas.
For more information visit www.billyhassell.com.
James Surls is an internationally recognized artist and one of the most preeminent living artists in the United States.
Born James Arthur Surls on April 19th, 1943 in Terrell, Texas, he graduated from Sam Houston State Teachers College in 1966 and from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1968. He taught at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX from 1968 to 1976. He then moved to Splendora, TX with his wife and artist-Charmaine Locke. He lived in Splendora for a little over 20 years. While there he founded the Lawndale Alternative Arts Space at the University of Houston in the late 70’s. Lawndale was a thriving artist community where he continued to teach and encourage and, where he produced a large body of work. Surls currently resides and has his studio in Carbondale, CO. He has lived in Carbondale, CO since 1997.
His sculptures, drawings and prints, which reflect his unique sensibility to natural forms, are in major art museums and public and private collections throughout the world, including: the the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; The country of Singapore; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Smithsonian American Art Museum, DC; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.
For more information visit www.jamessurls.com.