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Julius Woeltz Biography

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Julius Woeltz was a landscape painter, muralist and art teacher who had extensive preparation for his career. He studied with Wilson Nixon, Jose Arpa and Arpa’s nephew Xavier Gonzalez in Texas, spent a year in Paris at the Academie Julian and then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago on two scholarships. For independent study, he traveled in Mexico and France.

In 1932, he became Director of the art department at Sul Ross State Teachers College in Alpine, and two years later at the college began a series of large murals that depicted genre and landscape scenes of the Big Bend area in the region. From 1936 to 1940, he was in New Orleans where he taught at the New Orleans Art School. Then he moved to Amarillo where he completed six murals for the U.S. Post Office. In 1941, he joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin and taught there for the next ten years, but he was on leave of absence during World War II as a member of the Army Air Corps stationed in San Antonio.

Woeltz' exhibition venues were extensive from the 30’s through the 50’s and included the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Texas Watercolor Society, M. Knoedler & Company in New York City and the New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club.

He died in San Antonio in 1956 and is buried in that city in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

Source:
John and Deborah Powers, "Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists"; Fine Arts of Texas, Inc.