Our MiSA Perspectives series highlights the experiences and thought leadership of creative professionals based in San Antonio, Texas. Read on as contemporary artist, Rex Hausmann, shares a few arts and culture experiences that have shaped his 19-year career and counting.
[Sponsored] The art world can sometimes be a whirlwind. The combination of high and low culture, the combination of personalities, and PhDs can make your head spin. Still, somehow, someway, between the doorman, the president of a university, the mayor, and the cigar rollers, you find yourself enjoying oxtail soup on Park Avenue in New York City. This time it’s from the bodega underneath the apartment on Park Avenue, the deli bodega Greenleaf. Go Nicks!
I’m in “The City” (NYC), meeting with the former president of UTSA, Dr. Ricardo Romo, and his wife, Dr. Harriet Romo. With us is a manager and guitarist of the world music band Gipsy Land (the Gypsy Kings), Lucian Campos, and Dr. Marcus Burke, the Curator Emeritus of the Hispanic Society of America, for a tour of the Hispanic Society of America & the American Academy of Arts and Letters in upper Manhattan.
Many of these individuals I’ve known for over a decade or two decades! I consider these people close mentors and friends. Having worked on many projects before, a view is developing. All I can say is the view is good and the road is long with many curves, but along the way, there’s always oxtail soup. The journey is worth the expense.
Let me first explain by saying oxtail soup is delicious. A dish of what I’m familiar with from French and Asian origins, adapted to many cultures—a dish mimicking a kind of beef stew. The choice may sound alarming, I assure the reader it’s pretty delicious, especially after being on a plane for 10 hours. Apparently, there are medicinal purposes for the soup, bonus!
The first time I had oxtail soup was in Lincoln Center. There was a Cecily Brown on exhibition at the top of the stairs and I was eating at the restaurant named The Grand Tier because of the Marc Chagalls that were commissioned (above the restaurant). I was taking a friend from the art world to dinner. The oxtail soup was on the menu and was wonderful. We had a half bottle of French wine, a Côtes du Rhône. Later, I would become obsessed with Châteauneuf-du-Pape, something that I still very much enjoy to this day. This was years ago. I had a meeting with my gallery after an exhibition of French paintings at Waterfall Mansion and Gallery. After teaching in Lacoste, in the South of France, with The Savannah College of Art and Design, and visiting Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where Marc Chagall lived, I returned to New York. The oxtail soup, perfect. After dinner at Lincoln Center, we visited The Cloister Museum in Washington Heights and viewed the Mérode Altarpiece. A Triptych by Robert Campin (1427–1428). One of my personal favorite paintings.
The trip to The Cloisters was quite enjoyable. At The Cloisters, I always find myself visiting the garden. In the words of Cicero, "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." The garden at The Cloister is a medieval garden. The history of the Cloister Museum itself is quite fascinating. Every manner of medieval plant lives there, from edible plants to decorative and historical, including some quite rare. Initially started by artist George Grey Barnard, the museum was later taken over and developed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Rockefeller family, which is still under management today.
I used to be in Washington Heights with my friend John Cowan and his wife, Vanessa, in the gardens at Fort Tryon Park. We’d have cigars from Portes Cigars, still in business to this day in 2025, and talk and dream about being famous artists. This was in 2008. Later, in 2016, a whole group of artists would join and tour many museums, including Fort Tryon Park in an exchange with the Hispanic Society of America, The Hausmann Millworks, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA).
The Hispanic Society is someone I’m meeting with this week. I remembered how we have worked on multiple projects successfully, bringing Artists from Texas to New York and abroad, literally from all over the world, still as artists to artists. Something that Joyce Robbinson of the Mary Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation (now The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program) and Richard Tietz of the Denver Museum of Art, who are retired in San Antonio, always said were the best connections. These connections are. Something in life I’ve always adhered to, now 19 years in the art world.
On this trip we visited Martinez Cigar Company, where the Rex Hausmann cigar labels are produced. 171 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001. Simply call Jesus Martinez and ask for the Rex Hausmann box of Don Antonio Escogido Series Sampler Box. You’ll receive a selection of six wonderful cigars with my paintings on the labels, delivered by US mail in approximately a week. Jesus is a second-generation business owner and runs Martinez Cigars. His father started the business in the 70s, and he’s kept the flag going. Lucien, Dr. Romo, Dr. Harriet, and I visited to grab a couple of cigars and to say hello to Jesus, presenting him with a custom cigar box built by Jesse Moreno at Hausmann Millworks: A Creative Community, featuring one of my paintings on the cover of the box. Handmade cigars, handmade paintings, handmade boxes. All things craftsman, artisan, and hand-built, generation to generation. Dr. Harriet, being a sociologist, found the cigar shop fascinating. Dr. Romo was documenting and taking photographs of the cigar rollers as they continued with their craft. Jesus and I pose for a picture with the cigar box presented to him. Notice the smiles on everyone’s faces; this was a happy moment.
We then went to John‘s Pizza on Bleecker. A shop that traces its roots back to one of the original three pizza makers on the East Coast: Lombardi’s, John’s, and Grimaldi’s. John’s has been making the same pie since the late 1920’s, I remember when I had my first show across the street at the All Things Project in 2006 later in 2019 bringing a group of artists from all over the US for a group show, next to my show at the Sheen Center in 2019 “Rex Hausmann: Stations” later in 2021 we did another project with The Sheen “An American Dream”. There has always been this connection with New York City, even now, 19 years later, we’re working on some more.
Somehow and someway, I’ve ended up on Park Avenue, thanks to Jon and Monique. I have an apartment anytime I need it. A comfort not forgotten and most definitely not taken for granted. Every time I walk in the door, the doormen are so kind, and the bodega, Greenleaf Gourmet, walk-in restaurant on the corner, is always asking how the adventures are from Texas to New York City and Europe. I’m “That guy who paints from Texas”.
At the bodega, one of the regulars, Junior, is always talking about the Nicks basketball team whenever the game is on. I always ask.
“How are your Nicks doing, my man?” He always smiles and says, “They are my Nicks, they’re doing great. They did great tonight!”
He always smiles, and I always laugh, asking how all my museum projects are going. I say it’s always hard work, but good work. He says, “Nothing worth doing was ever done quickly and always takes time.”
Very wise words. I always smile and agree, usually grabbing my coffee or a half-gallon of milk because the apartment fridge is very small in contrast to everything in Texas that I’m around, which is usually very large, including our refrigerators.
To which I come to my last entry, oxtail soup. It’s what was in the bodega tonight. I had run into Mayor Ron on the airplane, the former Mayor of the City of San Antonio, Texas. Who’s helping write a letter to endorse an exhibition I’m trying to push through here in New York. I called my dad and said, “Hey Dad, Mayor Ron is writing a letter, you can’t get better than that.” My dad says, “No, honey, no, you can’t. You’re there mixing it up, and that’s what counts.” I go upstairs with my oxtail soup to go from the bodega downstairs. Enjoying time on Park Avenue, later a cigar with Nozomi and Adam overlooking Park Avenue. Of course, a cigar from Martinez Cigars in hand.
The tour of the American Academy of Arts and Letters was quite wonderful. We met with the curators, saw Mark Twain‘s pipe and a stone stepped on by George Washington himself, displayed in a very interesting way. Every time I visit The Academy, there is always something new to look at, including my pilgrimage to sit in Mark Twain‘s chair. Always a favorite.
In life, you have challenges. The further in your career you get, the more the challenges make no sense whatsoever, but the hope and common thread is that you showed up and that you’re trying. That’s what matters. Sometimes it’s just presence that matters. You leave the rest to God and do what you can and enjoy oxtail soup on Park Avenue. This one’s for Junior, Go Nicks!
5 days in New York, 19 years in & oxtail soup.
For a delicious recipe for Oxtail Soup, I recommend this one from Butcher Magazine.
Rex Hausmann is an international contemporary artist based in San Antonio, Texas. He is represented by Waterfall Art Gallery in New York City, New York, and owns/operates Hausmann Millworks: A Creative Community in San Antonio with his father and mother Gene and Renee Hausmann. Hausmann is a frequent contributing writer for Modern and San Antonio and was formerly on the M!SA Advisory Panel.