Paintings by world-renowned artist Don Snell to be auctioned Saturday

(ROCKWALL, TX – October 20, 2015) Local auctioneer and “Voice of Rockwall” Gary Freedman will auction off 20 paintings by world-renowned artist Don Snell this Saturday, October 24 at the Uptown Downtown Art Gallery, 301 N. San Jacinto in downtown Rockwall.

Doors open at 6 p.m.; the auction will begin at 7.

The auction serves as a fundraiser for Don Snell’s widow. Snell passed away last year.

About the Artist

Snell was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1922, grew up in Kansas City and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He received a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and had a teaching fellowship at Tulane University in New Orleans.

His website, donsnell.com, reports that Snell soon realized that teaching was robbing him of his true passion: time in the studio. He did not complete the Master’s degree. However, he subsequently taught at Arlington State College in Texas and the University of Houston.

In 2010, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Austin Visual Arts Association.

“It was never my intention to be an artist. But I read ‘Lust for Life,’ Snell wrote on this 2004 painting. “The idea of drawing naked females was of great interest to me. Besides I had no marketable skills so I took the vow of poverty and became an artist. Having said that, I must note that my first life career choice was acting. My problem was that I don’t work well with other people. I solved one problem with my camera. Females would without hesitation pose nude.I played to their vanity. So far my career has been uneventful. But when you consider I am 82 and still producing great works of art, things have not been all that bad.”