At age 85, Laura Wilson is still telling deeply human stories with her camera. The photographer, who has lived in Dallas since 1965, is showcasing four decades of her exploration of Mexico in Roaming Mexico, Laura Wilson. The exhibition begins Sept. 14 and opens the new season at Meadows Museum, SMU.
The exhibition features nearly 90 photographs, many never published, from Wilson’s travels across Mexico, from the U.S. borderlands to Oaxaca and San Miguel de Allende. Best known for her photographs of the American West and portraits of renowned authors, this exhibition is more personal.
“It’s not every person’s Mexico — it’s my Mexico,” Wilson said. “Much as in the American West, the Spanish influence is elemental in Mexico. Things we consider icons of Western culture — the horse, the longhorn — came from Spain and gave rise to the vaquero or cowboy. Mexico is culturally vibrant — the literature, the art, the sculpture, the architecture. The architects, the writers, and even the collectors that I have focused on are as much a part of modern Mexico, and of my appreciation of Mexico, as the laboring paisano or the fire-breather.”
Running concurrently with Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Visions of Mexico, the exhibition captures a rich tapestry of Mexican life.
Laura Wilson
Laura Wilson
Laura Wilson, Diptych: Fire Breathers, Uruapan, Michoacán, 2005; Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, 1985. Archival pigment print. © Laura Wilson.
“It is a privilege to open the fall season with Laura Wilson’s vision of Mexico. She is a truly gifted artist who has so eloquently captured the story of the American West. It seems only right that she should have turned that penetrating lens toward Mexico,” said Amanda W. Dotseth, The Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum and Centennial Chair in the Meadows School of the Arts, SMU. “Roaming Mexico speaks to Wilson’s admiration for and deep ties to Mexico but does so in ways that are at once sensitive, beautiful, challenging and complex. Mexico is part of the American experience. The Meadows Museum is committed to fostering cross-cultural understanding through Spanish art and its global connections. This exhibition offers a rare and moving look at Mexico through the eyes of one of Texas’ most compelling visual storytellers.”
ROAMING MEXICO: LAURA WILSON
Sept. 14, 2025–Jan. 11, 2026
For four decades, the wilds of the American West have served as a key source of inspiration for renowned Dallas-based documentary photographer Laura Wilson (b. 1939). Her images capture the lives of people across ranches, Native American reservations, rodeos and rural high schools.
The nearly 90 photographs offer a unique perspective of a multifaceted Mexico seen through Wilson’s eyes. They capture colorful festivals, traditional farms, and the poetry of everyday life. The viewer is therefore presented not with one Mexico—defined, for example, by its northern border, its religiosity, or rural populations—but with a nuanced, often contradictory view of a land of dynamic contrasts.
This exhibition has been organized by the Meadows Museum and is funded by a generous gift from The Meadows Foundation.
MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO: VISIONS OF MEXICO
Sept. 15, 2025–Jan. 11, 2026
Presented in conjunction with Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson is this captivating, focused exhibition dedicated to the work of influential Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902–2002), one of the most important artists in 20th-century Latin America. His work is distinguished by its striking compositions that draw from surrealist, modernism and documentary traditions. A contemporary of such luminaries as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Edward Weston, Álvarez Bravo’s photography often juxtaposes the everyday with the enigmatic. Featuring more than 30 silver gelatin prints from the 1920s to the 1980s, the exhibition draws from the collections of the Meadows Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Together, these images offer a compelling window into the artistic and cultural landscape of 20th-century Mexico.
Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo S.C.
Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo S.C.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1902–2002), Two Women and the Large Curtain with Shadows (Dos mujeres y la gran cortina con sombras), 1977. Gelatin silver print on paper, 8 × 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm). Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Gift of W. Barton Munro, 1980; transfer from the University Art Collection, MM.88.05.05. © Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo S.C.
This exhibition has been organized by the Meadows Museum and is funded by a generous gift from The Meadows Foundation.
RAIMUNDO DE MADRAZO
Feb. 22–June 21, 2026
Born into one of the most important artistic dynasties in Spain, Raimundo de Madrazo (Rome, 1841–Versailles, 1920) was a renowned genre painter and portraitist. This exhibition — the first retrospective dedicated to the artist — explores Madrazo’s international career as he became one of the most successful painters in Belle Époque Paris.
After studying painting with his father, who urged him to produce large historical canvases in pursuit of academic recognition, Madrazo instead settled in Paris to paint for that city’s thriving art market. He produced commercial works inspired by the tableautins, or small paintings of carefully staged interior scenes, by Ernest Meissonier and Mariano Fortuny. In doing so, Madrazo demonstrated remarkable painterly skill and a mastery of color, thus commanding high prices internationally.
Joaquin Cortés Noriega and Román Lorés Riesgo
Joaquin Cortés Noriega and Román Lorés Riesgo
Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (Spanish, 1841–1920), Carlos María Fitz-James Stuart, Sixteenth Duke of Alba (Carlos María Fitz-James Stuart, xvi duque de Alba), 1902. Oil on canvas, 35 1/16 x 28 3/8 in. (89 x 72 cm). Dukes of Alba Collection, Madrid, Liria Palace, inv. P.33. Photo by Joaquin Cortés Noriega and Román Lorés Riesgo.
By the final decades of the 19th century, Madrazo had established himself as the leading figure among the colony of Spanish artists in Paris. He produced numerous portraits of Spanish and Parisian women and carnival scenes that were widely reproduced in prints. He also gained favor among North America’s elite, earning a reputation as the go-to artist for “French-style” portraits.
This exhibition has been organized by the Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, and Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, and is funded by a generous gift from The Meadows Foundation.
Oscar Romero, courtesy of Galería Luis Adelantado
Oscar Romero, courtesy of Galería Luis Adelantado
Rubén Guerrero in his studio.
MEADOWS/ARCO ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: RUBÉN GUERRERO
Feb. 22–June 21, 2026
The Meadows Museum and Fundación ARCO have selected painter Rubén Guerrero(b. 1976) for the third edition of the Meadows/ARCO Artist Spotlight (MAS) program, an initiative that promotes contemporary Spanish artists through exhibitions at the Meadows Museum. Guerrero’s visually and intellectually engaging paintings, which pivot between abstraction and figuration and explore the limits of two-dimensionality, have been exhibited in major venues for contemporary art across Spain, including the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville and the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Málaga. His work can also be found in public and private collections in Spain, Germany and the U.S. As with prior MAS exhibitions, the artist will travel to Dallas to participate in several educational programs, many exclusively for SMU students.
All exhibitions included with general admission: $12 adults, $10 seniors 65+, $4 non-SMU students; free for Meadows Museum members, SMU faculty/staff/students, and youth 18 and under.
Learn more: Meadows Museum, SMU