Texan artist Tully Judson Petty Jr. lived in Ajijic for almost a year from mid-1967 into 1968. While living in Ajijic, he was working feverishly on completing 50 oils, watercolors, drawings and woodcuts for a one-man show at the exclusive DuBose Gallery in Houston scheduled for April 1968.
Petty was born on 13 Aug 1928 in Wise County, Texas, lived almost all his life in Texas, and died on 24 Dec 1992. Petty was educated at Texas Christian University, attended San Miguel de Allende School of Fine Arts in 1948, and graduated from New York’s Cooper Union.
During his freshman year studying art at Texas Christian University, Petty decorated yellow shirts, shorts, ties and scarves with lively outdoor scenes such as sharpshooting cowboys and men shooting pheasants. His designs apparently enjoyed some commercial success: “A local department store has placed orders for some of his scarves, replete with top hat, lamp post and champagne glass designs. (The Lafayette, Easton, Pa, 20 Dec 1946)
In 1948, Petty studied at the School of Fine Arts in San Miguel de Allende, and in 1950 married his childhood sweetheart Matilda Nail Peeler (1928-2009). The couple lived for a short time in New York, where Petty attended the Cooper Union and his wife worked as a model.
For most of the 1950s, Petty and his wife lived in Fort Worth, Texas. Petty ran his own advertising and public relations company, while Matilda was manager of the Galleria Department of the Neiman Marcus store (and later head buyer in couture fashions at Meacham’s). The couple had three children, but later divorced.
Petty retired from advertising at about the time he married Lynne Kendall in Parker, Texas, in May 1966. Shortly afterwards, the newly-weds moved to Mexico, where they lived for two months in Puerto Vallarta and six months in Guadalajara, before settling in Ajijic in June 1967.
Petty’s artwork was included in a group show of Texas Contemporary Artists which opened 11 October 1952 at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas. His solo shows included the Latch String Gallery in Fort Worth, Texas, in September 1967, and the DuBose Gallery in Houston in April 1968.
At Lakeside, examples of Petty’s woodcuts were shown in Guadalajara in June 1968 at La Galería (Ocho de Julio #878) for their First Annual Graphic Arts Show of prints, drawings and wood cuts. Other prominent Lakeside artists whose work was included in that show were Allyn Hunt, Tom Brudenell, John Frost, Paul Hachten, Peter Huf, Eunice (Hunt) Huf and John Kenneth Peterson.
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Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).