Painting Donated to Fayette Heritage Museum

The Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives recently received a donation of an oil painting by the noted early Texas artist, Hugo David Pohl.

Pohl was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1878 and studied art there, as well as in New York and at the Académie Julien in Paris. Pohl relocated to the Southwest in 1919, settling in San Antonio where he was the director of the San Antonio Art League, established an art studio and became president and director of the San Antonio Academy of Art.

In 1928, Pohl married La Grange native, Minette Teichmueller, the daughter of local County and District Judge Hans Teichmueller. Minette was an accomplished artist in her own right and was one of six women who won commissions from the WPA, painting the mural in the nearby Smithville U.S. Post Office.

The Pohls lived out the remainder of their lives as working artists, first in San Antonio, and then in Boerne. Hugo Pohl died in 1960 and Minette Pohl followed him in death in 1970. Both are buried in the La Grange City Cemetery.

The donated painting, given by the Luck & Loessin Collection Trust, dates to 1919 and depicts an adobe dwelling in New Mexico.