West Texas Landscape Painting: Treaty Oaks (SOLD)

Oak groves were considered sacred by the Comanche Indians and there’s a lot of legends regarding oak groves.  Perhaps the most notable in Texas history is the Council Oak Grove in present-day Austin, Texas.  According to folklore, the Comanches and Tonkawas met in the Council Oak Grove to launch both war and actions of peace.  Stephen F. Austin was purported to have met with Native Americans under the Council Oaks to negotiate a peace treaty.

There is only one surviving oak tree, known as the Treaty Oak, and it was vandalized in 1989.  Great effort was expended to try to save the tree.  With all that could be done, the experts expected the tree to die, but the struggling, 500-year-old landmark tree is still alive.

My painting depicts a sacred oak grove and is my tribute to the Council Oak Grove and the historic “Treaty Oak”.

The painting is 36”x36” and is acrylic painted on 100-year-old Ledger pages, glued to gallery wrapped canvas, from the Cotten Drug Company in Quanah, TX.  This procedure follows the historic practice of plains Indians scavenging scrap paper from Indian scouts to draw and paint on, and the genre is commonly known as “Ledger Art”.