Just 30 miles south of Dallas on I-35 sits the Webb Gallery of Waxahachie, specializing in secret society artifacts. It’s known throughout the world, not just Texas, and the outsider art that abounds in its collection lends it the personality it has grown into, all 10K square feet of it!
Bruce Webb established the gallery in 1987 as an antique store. However, it soon became a repository for Outsider and Southern Folk Art. The collection is the composition of “searching out what is amazing and persevering in the human spirit through art and design. That indescribable drive to create and the spirit of make do and excelling in using what you have available is what we are looking for to thread together the common esthetics of art, antiques, people, places, music, literature and objects,” according to the official website.
Photo: Facebook/Webb Gallery Waxahachie
Featuring secret society artwork from fraternal lodges as well as the art of carnivals, the gallery also collects rare books, vernacular photography, and contemporary art. “The Webbs have been crisscrossing Texas, the South, the Midwest and just about any hole in the wall across the country in search of the miraculous for more than a decade,” media on the Webb Gallery states. As a result, the gallery has amassed an amazing collection of items, and the couple (Bruce and his wife Julie) began curating exhibits in museums throughout the world as well as in schools and universities.
Photo: Facebook/Webb Gallery Waxahachie
Specializing in art finds which are both funky and visionary in nature, the Webbs have identified themselves as “flea-market trained.” Native Texans themselves, the duo has been known to travel across the country looking for items such as 1940s hand-painted carnival banners that advertise such things as freakshow acts. Theirs is a process that has been fine-tuned over the past three decades and then some. Since 1994, this unique Texas entity has been in its historic Waxahachie location, with five annual rotating exhibits. In addition to housing their collection, the Webb Gallery also hosts speakers, musical evenings, performances, and special events. Escape the hustle of Dallas and walk through the midst of mysterious Americana.
