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Johnny Banks (1912-1988)
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Paintings
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14x22
- Frame: 22x31
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- "Cotton Pickers"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 11.25
- Frame: 16.5 x 17
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "A - Cartoon"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 17 x 20
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Tired Travler"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14.75 x 21.5
- Frame: 22 x 29
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Milender Grocery New Berlin, Texas"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10.5 x 17
- Frame: 20.5 x 16.5
- Medium: Mixed Media on paper
- Dated 1987
- "Thanksgiving"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11.25 x 20
- Frame: 17 x 28
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "The First Time on Telephone"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 21 x 29
- Medium: mixed media
- "The Safari Hunt for the Man Eating Tiger"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11.5 x 14.5
- Frame: 17.75 x 20.5
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "The Head of John The Baptist"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 24 x 32
- Medium: Crayon, Marker, Ink Mixed Media
- "Mollie Harrisons Laundry"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 17 x 20
- Medium: mixed media
- Dated 1979
- "The Lonely Wild"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 12 x 14
- Frame: 18 x 20
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Jesus Being Judge by Pilot"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.5 x 9.75
- Frame: 19 x 15.5
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "Home Sweet Home"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 17 x 20
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "Alley and the Ghetto"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 15
- Frame: 16.75 x 20.75
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "On Pay Day"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 15.75 x 21.75
- Frame: 21.25 x 27.25
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "Bride New Home"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 20 x 28
- Medium: "Mixed Media"
- "Neighborhood Pool Hall"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 18 x 26
- Medium: Magic Marker,Crayola,Pen and Ink
- 1890's
- "Old Bernie Stage Coach Road"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.5 x 11.75
- Frame: 19.5 x 17.75
- Medium: Mixed Media
- Dated 1986
- "The Banks"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 8
- Frame: 17.5 x 14.5
- Medium: Multimedia
- "Puppy Love"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 12.5 x 8.5
- Frame: 18.75 x 14.75
- Medium: Multimedia
- "Hog Selling Time"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.75 x 10
- Frame: 19.5 x 16.75
- Medium: Multimedia
- Dated 1982
- "My Grandfarther"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10.5 x 13.5
- Frame: 17.25 x 20.25
- Medium: Multimedia
- "Tamale Cart"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 9 x 6.5
- Medium: Multimedia
- 1987
- "Woman in Red"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 12 x 8.5
- Medium: Multimedia
- "Time, Body, Soul and Mind"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 12.5 x 20
- Medium: Mixed Media
- 1986
- "Country Home Livin"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 12
- Medium: Multimedia
- 1984
- "Retired Railroad Man"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 9.5 x 17.5
- Medium: Mixed Media
- 1986
- "David Psalms 121"
- View details
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10 x 10
- Medium: Mixed Media
- 1985
- "Witchcraft"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14.25 x 11.25
- Medium: Multimedia
- "Walrus"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "The Superior Ruler Receiving A Crown From Seven Wives"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 17.75 x 20.75
- Medium: Multimedia on Paper
- "Mountain Home"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 115 x 9.5
- Frame: 21.75 x 15.75
- Medium: Multimedia on paper
- 1987
- "Watermelon Time"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 8 x 16
- Frame: 13.5 x 21.5
- Medium: Multimedia on Paper
- Dated 1985
- "Road Side Camp Out"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 28
- Frame: 22 x 35.5
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- SOLD AS PAIR
- "Adam And Eve In The Prim of Their Glory"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 17 x 28
- Frame: 24 x 35
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- "Adam And Eve In The Prim Of Their Glory"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 22 x 29
- Medium: Mixed: Crayon, Marker Pen & Ink
- "International & Great Northern The Texas Railroad Depot" San Antonio Texas
- View details
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 22 x 30
- Medium: Mixed: Crayon, Marker Pen & Ink
- "Mr. Kuni's Farm"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 22 x 28
- Frame: 28 x 34
- Medium: Mixed: Crayon, Marker Pen & Ink
- "Southern Pacific Railroad Depot" San Antonio Texas
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 21 x 29
- Medium: mixed media
- "Just A Memory"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 21 x 29
- Medium: mixed media
- "The Living Dead"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10.5 x 13.5
- Frame: 16.5 x 19
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Two Riding Through The Woods"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10 3/4 x 13 3/4
- Frame: Unframed At This Time
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Rodeo
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Medium: Multimedia
- "Buckin"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 14.75
- Frame: 18 x 18.75
- Medium: Mixed Media
- 1982
- "Events Will Happen"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 14.5 x 17.5
- Medium: Mixed Media
- 1981
- "Church"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 9.5
- Frame: 16 x 14.5
- Medium: Mixed Media
- Dated 1986
- "Back Then"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 19.25 x 8.5
- Frame: 24.25 x 13.5
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "Valentine"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 8 x 8.25
- Frame: 12.25 x 12.5
- Medium: Mixed Media
- 1985
- "The Shadow of a Great Man"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 17 x 20
- Medium: Mixed Media
- "Good Fishin on Elm Creek
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.75 x 20
- Frame: 20 x 27
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Daddy Playing in the Mud"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 16x22
- Frame: 23.5x28.5
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- "Daniel In the Lion's Den"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 16 x 28
- Frame: 20 x 32
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- "Funeral"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10 x 14.5
- Frame: 14.5 x 19.5
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- "Thanks God for The Welfare"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.75 x 21.75
- Frame: 19 x 27
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Beck Grocers
- View details
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 19 x 25
- Frame: 24.5 x 30.5
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Playground
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 22 x 28
- Frame: 28.25 x 34.25
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Johnny Banks Home
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 3/4 x 28 1/4
- Frame: Unframed At This Time
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Purple Longhorns
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 28 x 15
- Frame: Unframed
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Guitar Man
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10 x 15.25
- Frame: 15 x 20
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Watermelon Patch
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 15 x 18
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Bob Sultz Country Store
- View details
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.5 x 27.5
- Frame: 18.75 x 32.75
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- "Plowman"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13 3/4 x 21 3/4
- Frame: Unframed At This Time
- Medium: Magic Marker, Crayola, Pen and Ink
- Pigs To Market
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.75 x 27.75
- Frame: 19 x 33
- "Cattle Auction"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 14
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Tin Pan Alley"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 9.25 x 12.75
- Frame: 15 x 18
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Fisherman's Luck"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10.75 x 8.25
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Hard Days Work Ahead"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 26
- Frame: 20 x 32
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Peter Walks The Water"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 14
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Derof Grocery & Market"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 12.5 x 14
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Our Old Swiming Hole"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10.25 x 17.25
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "South East Africia Sarfiri"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10 x 13
- Frame: 16 x 18.5
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Texas Longhorn"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 9.25 x 20.5
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Animal Forest"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 10 x 22.75
- Frame: 16 x 29
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Going Cross New Mexico Dessert" " HOBBS
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 13.75 x 22
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "An - Old - Country - Home"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 12 x 26
- Frame: 19.5 x 31
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Slave Auction" Richmond Virginia 1853
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 12.5 x 8.5
- Frame: 18.5 x 14.5
- Medium: Pen, Pencil, Crayon, Marker
- "Bufflo Scout"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 14 x 22
- Frame: 21 x 29
- Medium: mixed media
- Dated 1981
- "African Village"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 15 x 28
- Medium: mixed media
- Dated 1984
- "The Night After the Snow Storm"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 11 x 14
- Frame: 18 x 21
- Medium: mixed media
- "Show Me the Way To Go Home"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 16 x 28
- Frame: 22 x 35
- Medium: mixed media
- Dated 1983
- "Fishermans Luck"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 22 x 28
- Frame: 29 x 35
- Medium: mixed media
- "The Milkman"
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- Johnny Banks
- (1912-1988)
- San Antonio Artist
- Size: 22 x 23
- Frame: 29 x 30
- Medium: mixed media
- "Fishermans Delight"
- View details
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Biography
Johnny Banks (1912-1988) San Antonio Artist
In my opinion one of the greatest Texas folk artists of all time.
The following information was compiled and submitted by Stephanie Reeves:
John Willard Banks, San Antonio, Texas, African American Folk Artist John
Willard Banks, black self-taught artist, the son of Charlie and Cora
Lee (McIntyre) Banks, was born on November 7, 1912, near Seguin, Texas.
At the age of five his parents took him to San Antonio, where he
attended Holy Redeemer School until the age of nine, when his parents
were divorced and John returned to his grandparents' farm near Seguin.
From childhood Banks's favorite pastime was drawing pictures on his Big
Chief tablet. He later recalled, "As a kid I used to lie flat on my
stomach, drawing and drawing. . . . My mother had to kick me off the
floor to sweep."
While helping out on his grandparents' farm,
Banks completed the tenth grade before striking out on his own. His
favorite activities during his youth were singing in a gospel quartet
and playing baseball. In his adult years he worked in oilfields and
cotton fields, drove a truck, and tended a San Antonio service station.
During World War II he joined the army; he held the rank of sergeant
and was stationed in the Philippines. After the war he returned to San
Antonio, where he worked as a custodian at Kelly Air Force Base, at Fort
Sam Houston, and at a local television station. Banks married Edna Mae
Mitchell in 1928, and they had five children. The marriage ended in
divorce around 1960. In 1963 he married Earlie Smith.
His
art career began in 1978 while he was recuperating from an illness for
which he had been hospitalized. Banks's wife admired her husband's
drawings and secretly took several of them to a San Antonio laundromat.
There she hung the drawings on the wall, offering them for sale at the
price of fourteen dollars. They were purchased and taken to a gallery
for framing. Quite by chance, a San Antonio physician and collector of
works of art by black artists, saw one of the
drawings in the gallery. He telephoned Banks and arranged for a meeting
to see his other work. The physician and his wife, became friends
with John and Earlie Banks and began to advise them on Banks's art
career.
Banks's first solo exhibition was held at Caroline Lee
Gallery in San Antonio in 1984, when Banks was seventy-two years old.
Subsequently, he had a dual exhibition with fellow Texas artist George
White at Objects Gallery in San Antonio; was shown in the Southwest
Ethnic Arts Society's inaugural exhibition of black artists in San
Antonio, where he won a prize; was included in two traveling
exhibitions, Handmade and Heartfelt, organized by Laguna Gloria Art
Museum and Texas Folklife Resources in 1987, and Rambling on My Mind:
Black Folk Art of the Southwest, organized by the Museum of
African-American Life and Culture in Dallas in 1987. Also in 1987 he
was included in a dual exhibition with fellow San Antonio artist John
Coleman at the O'Connor Gallery in the McNamara House Museum, Victoria,
and in 1989 he was one of six artists included in the traveling
exhibition Black History/Black Vision: The Visionary Image in Texas,
organized by the University of Texas Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery.
Also in 1989, Banks was included in the exhibition Innate Creativity:
Five Black Texas Folk Artists, sponsored by the Museum of
African-American Life and Culture and held at the Dallas Public Library.
Banks
developed a distinct style, outlining figures in pencil or ballpoint
pen and shading them in with colored pencil, crayon, and felt-tipped
marker. Sometimes his art was influenced by his early, rural memories,
including scenes of baptisms, church meetings, hog killings, funerals,
and Juneteenth celebrations. These works serve as excellent documents
of black life in early twentieth-century Texas. At other times, Banks's
work was the result of an inner vision that led him to such revelations
as his Second Coming of Christ, in which he drew his view of the
activities man might be found engaging in should Christ return today.
Whether his subjects were religious or rural, they took place in lush
landscapes, often with tree-lined rivers flowing through the
composition. He did a series of African scenes drawn from his
imagination, in which he depicted idyllic villages where communal
activities took place. Often they included references to the bounty of
nature and the virtue of working together toward a common goal. In
other pictures Banks told more somber stories, of slave auctions and
inner-city ghetto scenes. Through the facial expressions and gestures
of the figures, Banks revealed their psychological states and
personalities. When Banks died in San Antonio on April 14, 1988, he
left behind several hundred drawings.
The book "FOLK ART IN TEXAS" has an extensive article (with several color and black and white plates) written about Johnny Banks.
Sources:
Francis E. Abernethy, Folk Art in Texas, Publications of the Texas Folklore Society 45 (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1985).
Lynne Adele, Black History/Black Vision: The Visionary Image in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989). San Antonio Light, April 29, 1984.
Lynne Adele
Handbook of Texas Online
