Julian Onderdonk left his hometown in 1901 to study painting in New York City. That summer, he enrolled in classes at William Merritt Chase’s art school in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island, where he developed a facility for plein-air landscapes. In 1909, he moved back to San Antonio and began to paint the natural scenery of the surrounding Hill Country region, focusing on the spring wildflower blooms.

Onderdonk’s interest in the Hill Country was unconventional; most Texas landscape painters of his era favored the arid expanses of West Texas ranches. Nonetheless, Onderdonk gradually built a following, exhibiting his works both locally and in major national exhibitions. By the time of his early death at 40, he had helped usher in a new regional aesthetic that pictured Texas through the lens of contemporary impressionism rather than the rugged iconography of the so-called frontier.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)