BIOGRAPHY

Best known for his brightly-colored figurative works, Herb Mears painted a world of imagination, figures, faces, places – dramatic, colorful, always arresting. It has been said that his world was romantic – of time, people, and places suspended, of masked dancers, magical forest and villages, and boats scattered on a still sea.
But no mater what he painted – seascapes, cityscapes, or portraits- all reflected his own unique vision and style, capturing landscapes and inhabitants of the spirit rather than the earth.

Herb Mears had an insatiable curiosity about the world around him. His creative journey was not the shortest distance between two points but rather a journey of exploration, experimentation and discovery. He rarely sketched or drew or “pre-conceived” his paintings but rather splashed on color in blocks and blobs then added, discarded, arranged abstract shapes and patches of colors until he saw faces, forms, and figures emerging. He did not force himself on a painting but rather appeared to be a delighted bystander as it took on a life of its own. Mears was fascinated by the process, When asked, “which is your favorite painting? He always replied, “…the one I am working on.” He never coveted the finished product-it was that possessed him.

Mears’ work has been included in numerous exhibitions in venues across the country, including Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts where he was awarded first prize in a 1960 Houston Artist’s Show, a retrospective installed in the Architecture School of the university of Houston, numerous galleries, most prominently Houston’s DuBose, Wilhelm and Nolan Rankin Galleries, and a multitude of prestigious private and corporate collections. He listed in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art.

Beginnings

Born in 1923 on Long Island, New York, Herbert Richard Mears always knew he wanted to paint. He always drew; by the age of seven he was producing sophisticated compositions. At twelve years old he was selected as one of a small group of students drawn from the New York boroughs to be in the first class of the newly established High School of Music and Art. Traveling two hours each day by subway from Queens home to the school in upper Manhattan, he thrived in the innovative atmosphere of this then-experimental school. He graduated at sixteen and, seeking further study, with New Zealand artist Wallace Harrison. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army, we sent overseas, stationed in Germany during the occupation and was sent to France on a brief sojourn, a life changing experience, before returning to the United States.

Mears couldn’t wait to return to France where he found in St. Germain des Pres, a room for $25 a month, a third of his monthly $75 G.I. stipend. Enrolling in the studio of renowned painter Fernand Leger, he immersed himself in the heady artistic world of post-war Paris. He drank in the language, the literature, the romance of the city, its arts and its architecture, all becoming an integral part of his work.

Transplanted Texan

In 1951, after three years in Paris and summer at the Studio Hinna in Rome, Mears, at the urging of a friend, fellow student David Adickes from Texas whom he had met at Leger’s studio, moved to Houston where the two aspired to establish an art school. He immediately took to Houston, his new home, saying “I loved Texas from the day I arrived.” Since the school did not have the success the artists had hoped for, Mears began a thirteen year term at Humble Oil and Refining Company, where he drafted architectural plans, continuing to paint every spare moment until by 1964 demands for his work determined he could return full time to painting.

He met Ava Jean, his wife of 48 years, on his second day in Houston, at the contemporary Arts Museum where she was the first secretary of the fledging Contemporary Arts Association, now CAM (Contemporary Arts Museum). They had three children, Hilary, Kirby, and Andrew and three grandchildren, William Rhodes, Louis and Elliott Mears. They became a passionate part of the expanding cultural community in Houston. During this time and subsequently, in addition to raising a family, painting, working at Humble, doing volunteer work at the Contemporary Arts Association and producing art work for numerous civics and cultural non-profit organizations, Mears taught at the University of Houston, Rice University, the summer school of the CAA, the Hill Country Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

World Traveler

Mears loved to travel, especially in France and Italy, where he was dazzled by the architecture, the light, the people. One of his Christmas cards advised, “If you don’t love pasta, vino and amore, stay out of Italy.” He spent five weeks with his family exploring the Greek Isles, Spent time in Mexico, Hawaii, drifted through England and Wales, and investigated Scotland, Egypt, Scandinavia and other places which caught his attention en route. In 1966 Mears returned to France for a year, this time to the south. The family, beginning in Norway, spent six weeks in a microbus exploring Europe, their destination Antibes, on the Mediterranean coast. There the children enrolled in French schools, Mears, with his trademark exuberance, painted the Mediterranean scene.

In the same way a plant produces a burst of seed before it leaves this earth, the last six years of Mears’ life were in many ways his most fruitful. His “creative journey” culminated in a series of colorful, theatrical, exotic characters –chosen friends of his imagination -whom he dubbed, “revelers.” Mears often said he wasn’t interested in painting women who were comely or men who were handsome. He engaged by people who were expressive, maybe with big noses or wistful eyes, funny hair or holding masks – people who told “a story.”

One of the greatest compliment Mears felt he ever received was from a couple who had placed a large painting of revelers, beautifully lit, in a prominent upstairs picture window of their home. They told him, “You know, whenever we go out at night, as we back out the driveway, we always look up and wave goodbye.” In an era when many artist were employing experimental techniques with multi-media and many-layered effects, Herb Mears’ painting dealt with seemingly identifiable landscapes, birds, streetscapes and marine scenes. But one would see a romantic or magical strain in his works. There was nothing foursquare or simplistic about those works.

The travels he took with his family inspired works of unusual color and flavor, whether his passport was stamped in Greece, Egypt, and Mexico or wherever. Working in his tall studio at home, with only its high north windows, Herb would say, “In a room without windows, I can paint the world.”

Contributing Writers:
Ann Holmes
Former Fine Arts Editor
Houston Chronicle