How painter Porfirio Salinas left his mark on Texas and national politics

During his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law close to 300 conservation measures and expanded national parks. He and his wife Lady Bird’s love of nature and the environment is part of their legacy.

And it could be that they were inspired by one artist’s oil landscapes of the Hill Country: Porfirio Salinas.

Alexa Ura wrote about Salinas for Texas Highways. She spoke with the Texas Standard on the artist and the impact of his paintings. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: So tell me a little bit about Porfirio Salinas.

Alexa Ura: Yeah, so Porfirio Salinas is a native Texan who spent most of his life really working and painting these landscapes that we’re so used to and almost spoiled by in the Texas springtime – these landscapes of bluebonnets and these rolling hills – and managed to capture them in a way that really inspired folks like LBJ, but also other Texans who were spending time away, particularly those in D.C., who really clamored for his art because of just how closely he was able to sort of capture the spirit of the Texas Hill Country.

Do we know how the Johnsons first came across his work?

Yeah, so it was sort of by happenstance. They happened to be gifted one of their first oil paintings from a family friend. And it sort of set off this lifelong love for Porfirio Salinas’ work.

And it’s really interesting because it ends up tracking, sort of, the ascent of LBJ through politics. And you end up seeing Salinas’s landscapes, not only in the background of their family home, but also in these meetings with foreign leaders in the White House.

His work really followed him through this ascent and ended up being this backdrop to a lot of what became LBJ’s kind of well-known political life.

Well, what was it, you think, about his oil paintings that captured their admiration?

You know, I think there’s this sort of photographic quality. He’s an impressionist painter, but there’s really this sort of photograph quality that I think is really only appreciated in person versus even in sort of reproductions of his art, where you’re standing in front of these, usually, large canvases.

And there’s almost not a whole lot of texture and contrast in his work, but it feels so realistic. And something that I heard in chatting with folks who are a bit more familiar with Salinas’s work is that folks will often look at one of these sort of outlooks out in the Hill Country and they can swear that they’ve seen that exact view from somewhere because of how realistic and true to these views of Texas he was – that he was able to do that.

I think there’s also sort of a simplicity to his work. You know, he was a bit known as more of a commercial painter, as opposed to sort of this master of Texas art, despite being one of the early landscape artists. But there’s sort of a simplicity, I think, to his paintings that seems to be able to capture what it’s like to sort look out over the Hill Country in springtime.

Well, and we should remind folks that this, as you did mention, it was sort of their backyard when they were in Texas, right? So this was, I guess, like a “missing home” or “missing springtime,” maybe… This was a way for the Johnsons to really appreciate what makes the Texas Hill Country so special.

Yeah, and I think there’s sort of a nostalgic aspect to some of his art, the fact that so many folks who were no longer living in Texas or temporarily not living in Texas wanted to have it displayed.

You know, Salinas did end up painting, actually, out on the LBJ ranch. He was invited to go out there, just because of this relationship that built over time. He became sort of a regular painter out there, but his work was also appreciated by folks like House Speaker Sam Rayburn, who actually hung some of his art in the Speaker’s dining room up on Capitol Hill.

So really, there seemed to be sort of an affinity among folks who kind of wanted to take a little piece of Texas with them when they had to be away.

This is where it’s hard to be radio, right? But could you try to describe one of your favorite paintings?

Sure. One of the first paintings I came across in person was at a gallery out in Fredericksburg, actually.

It’s this painting where you see kind of these sloping-downward hills, kind of those rolling hills that we’re used to seeing in the Hill Country, and they sort of end on the banks of a very  thin creek that’s kind of reflecting the sunlight. And it just painted so vividly. When you’re standing in front of it, you can almost hear the water rustling in that little creek.

And then, of course, there’s a massive, massive canvas that’s on display at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, the scale of which I can’t even really describe to you because of how massive it is. It’s at least 11 feet by 13 feet, I believe, and you’re just sort of wrapped up in these fields of bluebonnets and there’s, you know, a few little cows and a little bit of a walkway or pathway that you could almost think about walking down and hearing the rustling of those bluebonnets.

There’s something about the scale and the sort of realistic nature of his art that’s really fun to spend time with.

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We mentioned the Witte there, the gallery in Fredericksburg… Are there other places in Texas where folks can go see his art?

Yeah, there are a few places where his art is available.

There’s another large painting at the Convention Center in San Antonio. That original painting that the Johnsons received from him is usually on display at the LBJ National Historic Park out in the Hill Country. It’s been closed for a remodeling, but once it reopens, it should be back up there as well.

There’s a painting at the Sam Rayburn Museum out in Bonham, and there’s a gallery in Fredericksburg where they have a lot of his paintings on display. The owner of that gallery has really sold just so many of Salinas’ paintings for so long that they’re just sort of in a regular rotation and that’s the Charles Morin Fine Art Gallery out in Fredericksburg.

You mentioned that Salinas was viewed as sort of a commercial artist. I wonder, now, is that the same? How is he viewed in the art world?

You know, my impression is that he’s quite popular among collectors of Texas art, and that folks who are kind of in the know and in those circles are well aware of him and are still hoping to kind of find pieces of his to add to their collections.

But I do think that now, as historians are hoping to sort of take a broader look on Texas history, Salinas has sort of entered this important role. You know, we’re sort of in this moment of disputes over history and whose version is uplifted and who gets to capture our history.

One of the things that came up in my reporting was the importance of the documentation that Salinas left behind – the Texas Hill Country, of the flora and the fauna – but also the importance of that documentation through his perspective as a native Texan who did most of his work here, as a Mexican American who came up in this art space, in some ways in spite of the odds of what life was like for Mexican Americans in Texas at the time he was growing up.

And so I think that there’s a growing view or a growing appreciation for Salinas’ work among historians who can appreciate not just the actual work he did, but the significance of the fact that he was able to do it.

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