San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Alamo painting gave artist a boost later in his career
Second of two columns
German-born artist Hans Huebner’s early life, covered in last Sunday’s column, was a patchwork of jobs decorating glass lampshades for lighting manufacturers in New York, Ohio, West Virginia and likely Milwaukee, where his name appears on a 1923 U.S. patent for a light fixture “husk” (the glass shade with a hole for the light bulb and socket).
After his 1895 arrival in this country, he seems to have followed an erratic path — marrying and fathering a child, at least once for both; committing a crime (illegible on his admission record) that got him sentenced to Sing Sing prison in 1910; bouncing around from one design job to another, while at some point abandoning his family and getting arrested for bigamy, cleared because he didn’t actually try to marry the woman, who died after an abortion.
We’re looking at him because — like so many people — he managed to reinvent himself in Texas, where he became such a respectable figure that his death was front-page news in an Austin paper, headlined “Well-known Southwest artist dies in wreck.”
In addition to at least one Texas history painting that was exhibited statewide, he created numerous still life paintings (mostly fruit and flowers), two of which are owned by reader Barbara Boucher, who asked for information about his life.
Huebner signed the Boucher paintings (purchased by her grandmother, a neighbor of the artist) by the moniker he seems to have adopted when he moved to Texas: Count Hans von Huebner, although there’s no evidence that he was descended from nobility.
He turns up in the 1931 Dallas city directory as “Hans von Huebner,” vice president of Criterion Arts Inc., no address beyond his residence in the Criterion Hotel, which may be the first time he used the fancy particle “von” in print.
Obituaries say he designed stained-glass windows for unnamed Texas churches, in keeping with his employment history and general upturn in his fortunes here.
In San Antonio, at least sporadically from the mid-1930s, he lived modestly in the Lawrence Hotel, 1607 Broadway, between 1938 and 1941, according to city directory research by Beth Standifird, Conservation Society of San Antonio librarian. This was a small, two-story building that advertised one-room “efficiency” apartments.
Before that, according to stories of his giant painting of the Alamo compound as it looked at the time of the 1836 battle, he spent three years researching the subject, traveling to libraries in Washington, Austin and Mexico, to view documents related to the buildings and the battle. And he spent an additional six months painting the artwork that was 7 feet by 10 feet, according to a story in the
San Antonio Express, Nov. 11, 1936, announcing its exhibit for two weeks in Municipal Auditorium.
The painting was “endorsed” by major Texas history and lineage organizations — the Daughters and Sons of the Republic of Texas, Pioneers of Texas and the Texas Historical and Landmarks Association.
More importantly, for his fortunes, he’s said to have been “sponsored” or “supported” by Mrs. W.A. Ridgeway of San Antonio, who may have suggested the subject and heroic size of the painting and is credited with helping him with his research.
Former Alamo curator and historian Bruce Winders, Ph.D., hadn’t heard of Huebner or his Alamo painting but noted that creators “often piggyback work to coincide with historic events in order to reach a built-in audience.”
Judging from a photo of the painting, he said, the compound “looks a little out of proportion, looking more square than rectangular. His church also seems a little elongated.” Huebner may have drawn on the Alamo plan in Reuben Potter’s 1860 booklet on the battle, derived from the author’s study of the grounds and talks with people familiar with the Alamo of 1836.
Huebner’s structures “seem to match up with that,” Winders said, adding that “a painting can only be as authentic as the information the artist has to work with. … More evidence has come to light since then.”
Someone with more energy than Huebner showed in his modest pre-Texas career seems to have arranged a promotional tour for him and his Alamo painting near the end of 1936, the year the Texas Centennial was celebrated.
A former circus publicist — W.R. Tumber, “who traveled for years with the Palmer Bros. show” — was hired to promote a Texas tour for the artist and his painting, according to the Express, Nov. 17, 1936, and the campaign seems to have worked.
In addition to the exhibit in Municipal Auditorium, it was shown in New Braunfels, where the artwork was introduced by well-known preservationist Adina De Zavala; Victoria; Gonzales, site of the first skirmish of the Texas Revolution; and Austin, where the American Legion sponsored a fundraiser at the Driskill
Hotel — patrons paid 15 cents to look at the painting, to help provide “Christmas cheer” for underprivileged children.
San Antonio newspapers published a couple of references to plans for the painting to be shown in Dallas at the Centennial Exposition, but this doesn’t seem to have happened.
Although the Austin History Center found no evidence of Huebner living or working in the state capital, his obituary in the Austin American stated that Huebner “once taught art to the late wife of Gov. Coke R. Stevenson.”
Well, if true, it was before the Stevensons were in the Governor’s Mansion. Stevenson was governor from 1941 to 1947, and his first wife, Fay Wright Stevenson, was gravely ill during the first year of his first term and died in 1942. He didn’t remarry until 1954, almost a decade after Huebner’s death.
After the flurry of centennial fame — there are a few references to another large canvas depicting the Battle of San Jacinto, but it either disappeared or was never finished — Huebner seems to have settled into a quiet life, living in a rooming house at 1227 Broadway. He was working as a night watchman for the American Mill & Fixture Co., 252 W. Josephine St., at the time of his death.
He might have been on his way to work when he was hit by a car at 10:40 p.m., July 26, 1945, at Broadway and 13th Street. He suffered a broken leg and died of internal injuries en route to Robert B. Greene Hospital, according to his death certificate, whose informant was Mrs. W.C. Fischer, not related to the deceased.
His death notice in the Express, July 28, 1945, says he was “survived by nephew, Winfield Wm. Huebner, of Long Island, New York.” That was the name of his only son, who gave Huebner’s name as that of his father on his World War II draft registration card a few years earlier.
The San Antonio artist’s funeral was held in the chapel of the Alamo Funeral Home, and he was buried in Roselawn Cemetery, later renamed San Fernando No. 3.
His Alamo painting had a longer public life, hanging in hotels in Corpus Christi and Austin. It was sold at auction in 1968 with all the furnishings of Austin’s Texan Hotel.
The buyer was Emma Fischer, a San Antonio artist, “who hopes to have it exhibited at HemisFair (’68) and later have it placed permanently at the Alamo Museum or the (Texas) Capitol,” reported the Austin American, July 1, 1968.
The painting was next on public view in 1973 in the office of the county clerk in the Bexar County Courthouse, according to a story in the San Antonio Light, Sept. 23, 1973, at which time it was on loan from
B.J. “Red” McCombs.
During the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986, the massive painting was shown at the Witte Museum, whose exhibit card points out inaccuracies in the depiction of structures within this “fanciful rendering,” commissioned by Elsie Rae Ridgeway, who was his landlady while he was painting the picture.
The painting at that time was owned by Mr. and Mrs. William A. Ridgeway. It’s said that Huebner “also made a large copy of the original, which he reputedly gave to his (unnamed) mistress.”
Discovered several years before the Witte exhibit, the copy “still exists in a private collection in San Antonio.”