Pastel Winter Trees by Will Klemm (Texas, B.1957)

17 1/8” x 17 1/8”

Unframed: 8” x 8”

This exceptional early landscape by Texas artist Will Klemm represents a rare historical window into the genesis of his mastery over the pastel medium. Originally a New Jersey native, Klemm moved south to attend the University of Texas at Austin, later reflecting that arriving in Texas was like "coming from the dark into the light"—a luminous quality that would define his entire career.

Created in the early 1990s, this intimate 8” x 8” work stands as one of Klemm’s very first twenty experimental pieces produced while studying under the legendary Southwestern "magic realist" painter William Hoey (1930-1994). Klemm was deeply inspired by Hoey’s simple, no-nonsense methodology and his use of a bold, "direct stroke". That heavy, direct stroke is on brilliant display here; working on fine-grain sandpaper, Klemm utilizes the raw tooth of the surface to contrast a heavily textured, fractured snowy foreground with a dense, near-abstract dark thicket. Slender tree trunks rendered in warm ochres and unexpected ribbons of burnt orange slice vertically through the scene, creating a sophisticated play of chiaroscuro that highlights Klemm's early realization that visual art requires a bit of intuitive "trickery" to make a scene feel alive.

While Klemm would later become renowned for expansive, hazy vistas, this early piece balances the raw structural geometry of Hoey's influence with the dreamlike atmosphere Klemm is celebrated for today. Unsigned, as is characteristic of his earliest studio experiments, this excellent-condition work is an indispensable historical document for collectors of contemporary Texas art, capturing the exact moment where mentorship evolved into Klemm's own legendary improvisational genius.

Texas 

1990s