Dollie S. Nabinger (1905 - 1988)

Landscape artist Dollie Spidle Nabinger was born in Commerce, Texas, raised in Victoria, Texas. Even as a young girl Dollie wanted to be an artist. Her parents supported her from the very start, enrolling her in a Catholic school because at the time public schools did not teach art. Her father personally stretched her first canvases.

Dollie credited that loving support for her eventual success as an artist. When Dollie was 13, her talent was already evident. J.F. McCan, a well-known Victoria artist, accepted her as his apprentice. She studied with him for seven years. Next she was off to the Art Students' League in New York for two years' instruction; later, in San Antonio, she studied with Jose Arpa and Harry Anthony DeYoung. In 1955 she spent a summer at the Academie Julian in Paris, France.

Dollie was married to Jack E. Nabinger, who handmade and carved many of her frames. They retired in Fredericksburg Texas around 1962 where Dollie could continue to paint and Jack could follow his hobbies of photography and woodcarving.

George Allen of Allen Art Galleries in Houston, Texas was avidly seeking a landscape painter (after Robert Wood left his gallery for California). After reviewing many artists he selected Dollie's works. She exhibited at Allen Art Galleries with reknown artists, A.D. Greer, George Phippen, Frederic Remington, V.A. Richardson and Chauncey Ryder.

Dollie is listed in Fredericksburg Texas, 150 Years of Paintings and Drawings by Jack Maguire; An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, 1998, University of Texas Press, Austin; Artists of Texas, 1800-1945, Texas A&M Press, 1999; Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists, a biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas before 1942, Woodmont Books, 2000.

Biography courtesy of  Sherwoods Gallery, Houston, Texas