Oil Rig, watercolor on paper, 21 x 29, signed lower right: Frary, This image, much like the entirety of Frary’s prolific body of work, reflects the artist’s educational background in architecture, as well as a palpable influence of Texas regionalist painting and the early to mid-twentieth century avant-garde. In a clearly referenced Texas landscape, Frary creates contrasting patterns with the repetitive shapes on the surface of the ground, and the soft, horizontal lines that comprise the sky. Uniting the two sections of the composition is the silhouetted rig, a massive machine dwarfed by the vastness of its environment and isolated by its harsh angles. Frary received a well-rounded formal fine arts education, studying at the University of Southern California, the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as in Mexico and Paris. A California native, Frary moved to San Antonio in 1949 for a teaching position at the McNay Museum, and lived in Texas until his death. Frary is celebrated nationally as one of the most important Texas artists. He is remembered for participating in ushering forth a radically new aesthetic into the state, and for contributing modern conceptual shifts to the Texas art scene.