W.S. Hills Building - El Paso, Texas

In 1936, Tom Lea had his studio in the second floor of this edifice formerly called W.S. Hills Building. In this handsome building of big windows northside, Lea built a scaffold and worked on government projects, including the murals in the Hall of State Building in Dallas and the "Pass of the North" at the Historic Federal Courthouse in El Paso. At his studio Tom Lea met for the first time publisher and book designer Carl Hertzog, Spanish sculptor Urbici Soler, and noted Texas writer J. Frank Dobie. Tom Lea said after remembering the day when Carl Hertzog knocked on his studio's door: "It was one of those meetings all of us are privileged to have a few times in our lives: we shake hands with a stranger and a few moments later we are talking to an old friend." - Tom Lea, A Picture Gallery, 1968.

Area: Central / Downtown

Source: Tom Lea Institute

Uploaded by: Tom Lea Institute