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Herman Hugg (1921 – 2013)

Herman Hugg is a longtime artist, educator, philosopher, and resident of Beaumont; was born in Strawberry, Arkansas. His family moved to the Panhandle of Texas when he was six. Prior to coming to Beaumont to teach Art and English at South Park High School in 1954, Hugg was a Navy CB in the pacific, an art student at West Texas State University, and a bodybuilder who trained with champions. He has a life long quest to promote arts coverage in the media. His home is full of newspaper clippings on art, poetry, literature, and a myriad of other things. Hugg is an outspoken advocate for art in schools and has played a significant role in shaping many student and artists lives while enhancing their creativity.

Hugg’s love for the arts began while he was in the Navy. “I got interested in art in 1943, the first year we were in the Solomon Islands,” he said. After 88 years, Herman Hugg knows what good art is. “This has soul,” Hugg commented, pointing to a Rauschenberg picture of soldiers in a foxhole; a painting that has won several awards. Some samples of Hugg’s work on view include bronze sculptures, enamels, paintings, and a blend of artistic art items that make Hugg a stimulating personality.

Eighty seven years ago, Herman Hugg was born in Strawberry, Arkansas, but soon moved with his parents to the Texas Panhandle. A Seabee in World War II, he began his artistic career by sketching the scenes around him. They were no only images of the flora and fauna, but of GIs and their grief. His postwar paintings were strikingly surrealistic. By 1949, while working as a part time painter, farmer and student, his work was the only Texas art accepted in the Denver Art Museum's 50th Annual Exhibit from states west of the Mississippi. In that show, he exhibited along side famous artists as Max Ernst. Mr. Hugg taught High School in Beaumont for 27 years, where he mentored John Alexander and several other artists who later became famous in the art world. Hugg is a prolific artist and lives on an acre of art in Beaumont. He is also an opinionated commentator on the value of visual art in our world, frequently writing or calling managers of newspapers and TV stations to point out the bias he feels reporters show for the visual arts.

Herman Hugg was born in Strawberry, Arkansas in 1921. The artist and his family moved to the Texas Panhandle when he was six years old. Prior to his arrival in Beaumont, Hugg was a U.S. Navy Seabee in the Pacific, an art student at West Texas State University in Canyon, Texas, and a bodybuilder who trained with champions. Hugg moved to Beaumont in 1954 to teach art and English at South Park High School and some of his students included artists John Alexander and George Wentz. Hugg's career consisted of numerous exhibitions and awards. Although primarily a painter, Hugg also creates sculpture in stone, wood and enamel. In the late 1960s, the artist began working on large-scale enamels created on recycled metal surfaces such as refrigerator doors and washing machines. His work is dominated by spiritual and surrealistic elements.