By Dalia Hajir
n the 1930s, the W.S. Hills Building served as a studio for the remarkable artist and writer Tom Lea. With a concrete foundation, walls of concrete piers adorned with marble facing, and a decorative roof of mixed materials, the building alludes to the timeless charm of classical-based embellishments. Ornate pilasters frame the windows, forming a stately rhythm within the facade. Behind those ample windows worked Lea, a master of the classics.
Image caption: W.S. Hills Building (Courtesy of El Paso Museum of History)
Lea was a muralist, illustrator, portrait artist, studio painter, war correspondent, poet, novelist, and historian, focusing most of his work on the colossal history of the Southwest. Wielding a brush to paint just as great as a pen for writing, he established himself as a genius in every field he pursued, rejecting anything short of perfection. In the Hills Building, Lea met for the first time Carl Hertzog, an artist, a master of book design, and founder of Texas Western Press.
Per Lea’s accounts in his book A Picture Gallery, the studio was on the second floor of the Hills Building, close to his home on Nevada Street and his father’s law office. The spacious room was a bookmaker’s establishment before a police raid shut it down. In haste, the tenant left behind his window curtains, which Lea used while renting the room. Through the windows shone the northern sun, pleasantly casting blocks of warm light and revealing the looming ridge of the Franklin Mountains in the distance. This dream of an art studio allowed him to work with easel pictures and enormous murals for a long time.
Born in El Paso, Lea was the son of Tom Lea Sr., a renowned criminal lawyer who became mayor of the city. His father hugely supported his artistic career, often bringing friends during his visits to the studio, some being prominent local figures. Lea drew portraits of some of them, including Frank Collinson, a “trail driver with a bull voice you could hear coming from the corner of Texas and Mesa”; Captain John Hughes of the Texas Rangers, and the esteemed trail driver Jim Chinn, capturing in their faces what he observed to be the “character and the quality of an elder frontier.” In 1936, while painting The Nesters, a mural for the Post Office Department Building in Washington, the famous Lea-Hertzog meeting took place.
After hearing a knocking on the door, Lee recalls, “I answered it and met for the first time Carl Hertzog, a young man who owned and operated a printing shop over on San Antonio Street. He introduced himself, saying that he was doing some advertising design for local firms, and came to ask me if I could provide some artwork for a hotel ad. I sure could.” This fateful encounter brimmed with potential for both, setting the stage for a monumental partnership that lasted decades.
Chatting with ease as one does with a long-time friend, they soon shared ideas to produce a book, one with pristine type and spacing, with “good ornament, on good paper, printed right, bound right.” Unafraid to express their opinions, they comfortably discussed and sketched their ideas at the Tivoli Bar, where they drank “tall cool planter’s punches” on hot afternoons. Their focus remained on their own work, but whenever they collaborated, the result was cause for admiration among scholars and the public.
“It was one of those meetings all of us are privileged to have a few times in our lives: we shake hands with a stranger and a few moments later we are talking to an old friend,” says Lea. Their most famous collaboration is The King Ranch, an immense book about the legacy of the emblematic Texas ranch. The Waco News- Tribune, now the Waco Tribune-Herald, states in a June 1, 1967, article that the book, an “all-Texas production,” was written by Lea and designed by Hertzog, taking Lea five years to write and illustrate the acclaimed masterpiece. Working closely with Lea, Hertzog created a “new system of color separation” specifically for the book’s illustrations. Hertzog designed a private edition with covers resembling the appearance and texture of a saddle blanket, paying homage to the theme and history of the King Ranch. Another significant collaboration is A Picture Book of Thomas Jefferson.
Image caption: Tom Lea and Carl Hertzog, 1967 (Courtesy of UTEP Special Collections, El Paso Herald-Post Records)
According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, Hertzog moved to El Paso in 1923, responding to an employment advertisement and landing a job as a print layout designer for a printing company. In 1934, he bought his print shop and began printing and publishing small-scale items like “catalogs, booklets and advertising material,” including the hotel advertisement he did with Lea in 1936. Developing a sharp sense for the publishing industry, the variety of his work expanded over time, his skills in design and marketing gaining recognition in the world of books. Examples of the books he printed around that time are the Range Life Series, Letters of Sidney Lanier, and a comprehensive book on square dance moves.
Both devoted to perfection, Lea and Hertzog agreed books must be visually appealing, informative, and engaging. The Waco Tribune-Herald expresses that Hertzog, “a perfectionist in such matters as selection of typefaces, size, color and texture of paper and bindings, and general appearance,” matched every design element to the book’s subject matter. While Hertzog “taught Lea to set type by hand… Lea gave Hertzog advice from the artist’s viewpoint.” Hertzog affirms that Lea had “a terrific eye for book design,” compelling him to seek his opinion for books even if they were not collaborations. These exchanges enriched each other’s expertise in their craft, motivating them to produce works that blended astounding imagery with harmonious compositions that supported each book’s contents with mastery.
The Waco News-Tribune reports that Hertzog likened the art of book design to the painstaking work of an architect. Much like an architect planning to create a design that combines elements like structure, function, space, ventilation, and lighting into a building that matches the surrounding environment, “The designer is entrusted with selecting size and shape of the book, paper color and texture, style of type, and a final binding to tie the finished product into a harmonious whole.” This fascinating comparison showcases the thoughtfulness with which Hertzog approached his treasured books.
“Lea and Hertzog go together like beans and tortillas,” states the Waco News-Tribune article. Carl Hertzog and Tom Lea’s accomplishments in art and literature will forever be treasured within the Southwest, with the W.S. Hills Building a silent witness to the meeting that reached deep into the fabric of El Paso’s history.
