Bywaters Special Collections Artist Profile: Barbara Lucile Maples

Featured in the exhibition Texas Women Artists: Selections from Bywaters Special Collections, on the 2^nd floor of Hamon Arts Library.

Barbara Lucile Maples (1912 – 1999) was born in Temple, Texas to Leslie Buford and Lucile Beatrice Hartrick Maples.  She graduated from Temple High School in 1929 and continued her studies at Mary-Hardin Baylor College in Belton, Texas where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1933.  Six years later she received a Master of Arts degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York.  She taught in Temple and Fort Worth before joining the Dallas Independent School District where she taught elementary and secondary art from 1937 – 1964.  In 1940, she began teaching children’s art classes at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts School, a post she maintained until 1954.  In 1965, Maples was appointed Assistant Professor of Art Education and in 1974, Associate Professor of Crafts Design at Southern Methodist University where she continued teaching until her retirement in 1978.

A consistently productive artist, Maples worked in several mediums, including painting and metalsmithing, but was known mainly as a printmaker.  During the summers of 1943 – 1945 she studied with Lawrence Barrett, a lithographic technician and instructor at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center.  Barrett, known for his excellent craftsmanship and serious approach to the lithographic process, worked with faculty and other artists to produce their prints.  Maples joined the Printmakers Guild (renamed Texas Printmakers in 1952) in Dallas and served as its president (1945 – 1946) and treasurer (1950 – 1960).  She was active in other art organizations including the Craft Guild of Dallas and the Dallas Print and Drawing Society.

Maples died in Dallas in 1999.  She is buried in the Maples family plot in Temple, Texas.

Image: Barbara Maples, n.d., original dimensions (image):  9 ¾” (H) x 7 ¾” (W)
Courtesy of The Jerry Bywaters Collection on Art of the Southwest, Bywaters Special Collections, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University