Review of “Mary Virginia Carson: Pioneer Artist Capturing Rock Art with Watercolors” at the Witte Museum

Mary Virginia Carson, “Pecos Canyon,” watercolor and pencil on Italian paper, Witte Museum Collection [1996-40 X (17) 102)], Courtesy of the Witte Museum. 

In 1931, the Witte Museum employed Mary Virgina Carson (1906-1987) to document the pictographs left by the indigenous communities of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Carson, an artist, architect, and engineer, documented over 100 pictographs during the two 1931 summer expeditions. Curated by Marise McDermott, President Emeritus of the Witte Museum, this exhibition acknowledges Mary Virginia Carson’s impressive watercolors she made during this time. I had the chance to join a tour with McDermott and speak with her about the exhibit. Some of her comments are integrated into this review.

The exhibition contains 52 examples of Mary Virgina Carson’s documentation pictographs. In addition, there are two watercolors of West Texas canyons and two maps that were also made during her expeditions. The maps feature the locations of different pictographs in the canyons, along with certain cities and counties in the area. The Canyon watercolors reveal Carson’s impressive artistic abilities. She sketched Pecos Canyon with pencil, then added a beautiful assortment of watercolors across the paper, capturing the essence of West Texas for the viewer. Both of Carson’s Canyon watercolors were selected for a juried show at the Witte in the fall of 1931.

Mary Virginia Carson, “Painted Shelter,” watercolor and pencil on Italian paper, Witte Museum Collection [1996-40 X (17) 11.1], Courtesy of the Witte Museum.

Mary Virginia Carson, “Point of Rock,” watercolor and pencil on Italian paper, Witte Museum Collection [1996-40 X (17) 88], Courtesy of the Witte Museum.

Carson used a similar method to document the pictographs in the caves. She lightly sketched the figures with pencil, then applied watercolor paint to the sketches. Carson imitates the color of the cave rock in some of these watercolors, creating a more realistic representation of how the pictographs were found. To accompany Carson’s work, information is provided regarding archeological styles/periods, what materials were originally used to paint on the cave walls, and the different figurative patterns found in Lower Pecos Canyonlands pictographs. The three pictograph watercolors used in this article were painted during different time periods: Red Monochrome Style, Red Linear Style, and Pecos River Style. Changes in how anthropomorphic figures are represented or if certain tools or animals were included can visibly indicate a different archeological style.

The Witte has several learning tools that concentrate on a large pictograph mural from the site called Rattlesnake Shelter. A digital gigapanorama is available to compare Carson’s watercolors against the cave wall mural. The mural is 100 feet long, and Carson’s rendering of these pictographs is incredibly detailed, precisely recreating how the figures dance along the cave wall. The combination of figures may seem arbitrarily placed along the cave wall, but these images have meaning. During the tour, it was mentioned that these figures in the Rattlesnake Shelter mural appear to be emerging from the underworld.

Mary Virginia Carson, Rattlesnake Shelter, watercolor and pencil on Italian paper, Witte Museum Collection [1996-40 X (16)], Courtesy of the Witte Museum.

I asked McDermott what she hopes visitors learn from this exhibition. McDermott said she hopes visitors appreciate Mary Virginia Carson’s preservation skills of the pictographs (some of these pictographs are not visible to the naked eye anymore). Likewise, she wants visitors to recognize Carson for her incredible work. I agree and commend McDermott and the Witte Museum for organizing this exhibition and publishing a book about Carson’s contributions to art history and archeology. The exhibition thoroughly looks at her accomplishments to this area of art preservation and documenting, without mentioning any male counterparts in the field. I found this refreshing, because women are often overshadowed by a male narrative within professional spaces. It is wonderful to see Mary Virginia Carson getting the recognition she deserves with this wonderful exhibition, acknowledging her accomplishments in documenting the Lower Pecos pictograph murals.

Many thanks to Leslie Ochoa, Clara Guerrero, and Marise McDermott of the Witte Museum for their contributions to this article.

“Mary Virginia Carson: Pioneer Artist Capturing Rock Art with Watercolors” is on view until March 23, 2025 at the Witte Museum. The exhibition accompanied book can be purchased at the Witte Bolner Family Museum Store or online.