Art: Texas Realist

Everett Franklin Spruce, 48, is the other kind of painter. He did not spend his youth in the ateliers of Montparnasse and the arms of his models. Nor did he return wearing beard and beret. The measure of his distance from the conventional unconventional background is that he is a respectable father of four, a full professor of art, and a citizen of Texas. For the past 30 years Professor Spruce has been celebrating the flora and fauna of Texas in imaginative oils laid on with a realistic brush. Now the University of Texas is publishing an annual full-color portfolio of...