Signed Ltd Ed ADOLPHUS HOTEL Dallas by Lewis Gordon

Historic Dallas, Texas Lithograph Featuring: Adolphus Hotel and The Magnolia Building With the Mobil Oil Pegasus Sign From a series of 6 signed and numbered, limited edition lithographs Create a grouping of several of these historic and rare prints. Contact the seller for information on the other prints in the suite. Signed and numbered, never framed, limited edition lithograph by Lewis Gordon. Print is in excellent condition. Edition size is 1000 prints and a certificate of authenticity is provided. Size of the print is approx. 24" x 32" and image size is approx. 20" x 28". Sir Alfred Bossom of England designed this early Dallas Skyscraper that was the headquarters of the Magnolia Petroleum Company, predecessor to Mobil Oil. The architectural style might be called a modified classical design. The 29 story tower consists of a three story base, a U-shaped tower and a top that has a balcony on three sides, multi-leveled penthouses, and an ornamented chimney stack. In 1934, Magnolia Petroleum Company erected a large "oil derrick" on the roof that supported two 30 by 50 foot red neon signs that were in the image of Pegasus, the flying red horse, that was the corporate logo for Magnolia. Mobil, as a part of Exxon Mobil Corp. still uses the logo today. The two red horses were located 14 feet apart and revolved when placed on the building. In addition to the sign, the penthouses were illuminated at night. For many years the sign was the highest element within blocks, but by 1974 it had quit revolving. However, the Pegasus sign had become a Dallas icon. Artist, L. Gordon states, ''My art career started in the sixth grade when I drew a picture on thecover of a geography report and got a better grade. Since then it's never occurred to me to do anything else.'' Thus began a lifetime of doing exactly what Lewis Gordon always wanted to do - paint. Now one of America's foremost impressionists, Mr. Gordon devotes the majority of his time to his artistic endeavors. He has disciplined himself to choose a thought in the form of a single image, then build an environment around it. What derives from this process is a unique vision of reality, or the world according to L. Gordon. Over the course of his career, Gordon refined the style he calls Romantic Realism. “First I choose a focal point. It might be a park bench or a woman with a red watering can. Then I give that focal point an imaginary, romantic setting,” he explains. “My paintings are my feelings about a place as much as they are about what the place actually looks like,” says Gordon. “If I find a subject I like, I’m not restricted by what I see. If the trees are small, and I imagine them more lush and tall, then I paint them that way. There is real joy in recreating the feelings I experienced by painting the scene as it looked to my soul.” Like many artists who must work to support the development of their art, Mr. Gordon spent many years as an illustrator, having honed skills at the Munich Academy while stationed at the U.S. Air Force base in Munich, Germany, and under the tutelage of Violet Moulin, a New Orleans portrait artist. He eventually opened a studio where he illustrated books for children and teenagers, as well as specialized in travel illustrations for advertising. In his paintings, he uses acrylics on canvas after first working out his idea in small pencil sketches. He uses a great deal of bright colors, sometimes adding flowers so that he may use even more color. L. Gordon has won numerous awards for both his commercial and fine artworks, including the William Stein Award for Portraiture. His paintings are found in the corporate collections of AT&T, Holiday Inn, and Texas Instruments, as well as many private and museum collections.