Warren Hunter (1904-1993)

Known as Warren Hunter, was a Texan who lived in San Antonio, Harper, Helotes and Bandera. He painted landscapes "that reflected his enjoyment of the rural Texas scenes he loved." Hunter was born in London, Texas and raised in San Antonio. His father published newspapers in small towns in Arizona, New Mexico and southwestern Texas, and John worked with him and sometimes illustrated his father's stories with linoleum block prints. In the 1920s, he began his own publications including the "Harper Herald", which the Texas Press Association in 1925 named the Best Texas Weekly. In 1934, he moved to Bandera, and made enough money to go to the Art Institute the next year in Chicago. He graduated from there with honors in 1939 and moved to San Antonio and did a mural for the Post Office in nearby Alice, Texas. In the 1970s the mural was saved at the request of Smithsonian personnel when the post office was torn down, and the mural was installed at the National Museum of American Art. In San Antonio, he worked as a commercial artist and also taught life drawing at the Witte Memorial Museum School of Art. During World War II, Hunter worked for the U.S. Army Map Service, and then worked briefly in New York before returning to San Antonio, where he resumed teaching at the Witte Museum until 1952 and from 1946 to 1961, taught at his own school, the Hunter School of Art. In 1946, he also began teaching at the San Antonio Art Institute and in 1951, became Dean of that school. As an illustrator, he won many awards and his work appeared in history texts and the "Ford Times". John Hunter died in 1993 in San Antonio when flood waters swept his car off a road.