Born and raised in north-central Texas, George Hallmark was an architectural designer and commercial artist before turning to easel painting. Voted the official Texas State Artist in 1988, he has done work which can be found in many prestigious private and corporate collections, including those of Texas Instruments, the Texas Capital, MBNA, the Booth Western Art Museum, the Eiteljorg Museum, and the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Hallmark’s work has been featured in Art of the West, Western Art Collector, Southwest Art, and U.S. Art magazines. He is an annual participant in the Prix de West Exhibition and Sale at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and the Masters of the American West at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles.
George participates in the Eiteljorg Museum’s Quest for the West show in Indianapolis, where in 2010 he won the Artist of Distinction Award. Hallmark's work is also featured in the West Select Show at the Phoenix Art Museum, where in 2011 he won the Silver medal for oil painting. In early 2012 the Briscoe Museum in San Antonio purchased a major painting for their permanent collection.
NOTABLE AWARDS AND ACHIEVMENTS:
2015 Cover and Feature - Art of the West Magazine
2014 Featured Artist - Architecture in Art, Phippin Museum, Prescott, Arizona
2012 Permanent collection - Briscoe Museum
2011 Silver Medal Winner for Oil Painting - "The West Select" show, Phoenix Art Museum
2011 Permanent collection - Eiteljorg Museum
2011 Retrospective at Eiteljorg Museum
2010 Featured in book "Texas Traditions" Contemporary Artists of the Lone Star State
2010 "Artist of Distinction" award - Eiteljorg Museum
2010 Western Art and Architecture Publishers Award - Autry Museum
2009 Commissioned by Booth Western Art Museum - Major Work
2008 Selected member of the Salmagundi Club - New York, N.Y.
2008 “Sombras de Dios” selected Top 10 - Art of The West Magazine
2005 Permanent collection - Autry Museum
2001 “Viernes” selected by US Art Magazine - Top 50 paintings
1988 Selected by Texas State Legislature as Official Texas State Artist
Submitted by Lisa and George Hallmark, the artist and his wife, May 2015
Born in 1949 in Cleburne, Texas, George Hallmark also lived in Kopperl, Texas, in Northern Bosque County. He is a realist sculptor and painter of the contemporary Texas cowboy. He uses oil and mixed media such as pastel, acrylic, colored pencil, and tempera.
Hallmark was an art major at the Tarrant County Junior College, and later studied at Texas Christian University, but dropped out to study realism. After working as an illustrator for nine years, both as a free-lancer and for an architectural firm, he studied with William Whitaker at Brigham Young University during the summer of 1979.
After studying with Whitaker, Hallmark began his painting career painting local historic buildings for new branches of banks in the northern Hill Country of Texas. The paintings were commissioned by the banks and signed prints were sold to benefit the local historical societies.
In the mid 1990s, Hallmark decided to leave commercial art and pursue his own visions. The artist traveled extensively in Mexico and France and painted scenes, which compelled him personally.
His new paintings sold well, and in 2000 he was invited to show his work in the Masters of the American West Show at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles. The next year he was invited back and one of his paintings sold to Howard Terpning.
Sources
Art of the West, September 2003
Harold and Peggy Samuels, Contemporary Western Artists
Born and raised in central Texas, George Hallmark was an architectural designer and commercial artist before turning to easel painting. Voted the Official Texas State Artist in 1988, he gained recognition for his landscapes and rural Americana scenes. Recent years have seen him drawing heavily on his architectural background to produce colorful and texture rich paintings that capture old stucco buildings, crowded street markets, and century old European buildings and cobblestone streets.
George Hallmark's paintings are found in prestigious private and corporate collections including Texas Instruments, M.B.N.A., and the Medical Heritage Collection. In 2002, his work was selected for the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage show.
