Texas State History Museum Building - Austin, TX
Posted by: 
Raven
N 30° 16.817 W 097° 44.322
14R E 621311 N 3350516
Six 11’x15' bas-relief sculpture panels on the front facade of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum building displaying several chapters of the state's history.
Waymark Code: WMN89Q
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/18/2015
Views: 4
The Bullock Texas State History Museum was the dream of former Texas Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, who, in 1996, began pushing for a state history museum to be built in the state's capital. The project was approved by the Texas Legislature in 1997; construction began in 1998 and the museum officially opened on April 21, 2001 -- at a cost of $80 million.
In 1999 the State Historical Commission commissioned local sculptor Mike O’Brien (who was often in service for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department) to construct six 11’x15' bas-relief panels for the front façade of the museum building: the panels were to illustrate the highlights of Texas history and be the first thing visitors would see when they visited the museum.
As best described by the
Texas Monthly magazine:
"The panels — which were budgeted at $250,000 — would incorporate the themes the museum had come up with: “Encounters on Land,” “Building the Lone Star Identity,” and “Creating Opportunity.” But it was up to O’Brien [...] to fill in the details. To make sure that the timeless statements he intended to produce were grounded in their original moments, he pored over such authoritative sources as the six-volume Handbook of Texas, T. R. Fehrenbach’s Lone Star, and old WPA photos.
The panels begin with a Native American leading a conquistador through the Palo Duro Canyon. Next, O’Brien chose a forward-looking take on the Alamo. “We decided not to fight the battle again,” he says. “We wanted that incredibly vulnerable moment right after the battle when things could have gone in any direction.” And on through the state’s icons and achievements: cattle, cowboys, and trains; cotton and immigrants; oil; and space exploration.
After the advisory committee approved O’Brien’s sketches, he sculpted two- by three-foot clay miniatures, or maquettes, and took them to Blue Genie [Art Industries]. To blow up the scale, the boys made three-dimensional drawings of the maquettes, like topographical maps, which they enlarged to eleven by sixteen. For each bas-relief, the topographical layers were translated into pieces of Styrofoam that were then built up on a giant plywood panel and covered with clay so the team could create the full-sized image. They spent hours working the clay to get every detail correct, from the buttons on the Mexican soldier’s coat to the little bluestem grass the cattle run through.
When they had finished sculpting, they made the molds by spraying a quarter-inch-thick veil of rubber onto the clay. After it dried, the finished molds were peeled from the clay and shipped to GFRC Cladding Systems in Garland, where they were filled with glass fiber-reinforced concrete. Once it had set, the rubber molds were removed and the panels—which the Preservation Board wanted to blend in with the other statuary in the Capitol Complex—were stained a bronze-like dark brown."
Some additional photos of the final panels can be see on
Blue Genie Art Industries's website.