The Approaching Herd
227 N. Adelaide Street
This mural is a faithful reproduction of the 1902 Frank Reaugh painting "The Approaching Herd", the only exception being the addition of a likeness of Mr. Reaugh as if he is painting the landscape. Reaugh used his sketches and photographs from Terrell and West Texas for the composition. The artist wrote, “These Longhorn Texas cattle depicted were beautiful animals but were very wild. Many of them had never seen a man on foot before. People walking were sometimes treed by them. It would have happened oftener if there had been more trees.” - Frank Reaugh, Paintings of the Southwest, 1937.
Charles Franklin Reaugh, born Dec 29, 1860, moved with his family to Terrell in 1876. He taught art in Terrell for a time. In 1890, he and his parents moved to Dallas where he established his “Ironsides” studio, but continued to visit Terrell until his death in 1945 at the age of 84. He is buried with his family at Oakland Memorial Cemetery in Terrell. Reaugh traveled the West, capturing scenes to be used in his realistic but poetic images of the vistas, Longhorn herds, and the cowboy life that was Texas. He concentrated on small pastel sketches of the wild and colorful Texas Longhorn. Reaugh once said “no animal on earth has the beauty of the Texas steer.” He studied art at the School of Fine Arts in St Louis, and at the Academie Julian in Paris, France. His paintings are displayed at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Southwest Collection Library at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and the Texas Capitol Historical Art Collection in Austin.