Ancel E. Nunn (1928-1999) Ancel Edward Nunn was an acclaimed artist known for his super-realism style and acrylic in egg tempera technique. Born on April 27, 1928, in Seymour, Texas, Nunn grew up in several West Texas communities. Ancel began drawing at age 12, and his early art education included studying at the Dallas Art Institute and attending summer workshops under noted artists such as Dong Kingman and Alexandre Hogue. Nunn added to his early art education through summer workshops under noted artists such as Dong Kingman and Alexander Hogue. In 1944 his dry point etching, The Domino Players, won Honorable Mention in the prestigious Ingersoll Competition. The following year his watercolor, The Cockfight, was awarded first place.Nunn graduated from high school in Abilene in 1946. He entered the U.S. Army in 1947, spending several different active-duty periods and attaining the rank of Major. During this period, he did little or no painting. He was recalled to active duty in 1963 and produced no paintings during that year. In 1964 he was again released from the army and at that time committed himself to becoming a professional artist. Between 1964 and 1967, Nunn searched for a personal style and philosophy of painting, during which time he destroyed many of the paintings he produced. In 1969 Nunn moved to Palestine, Texas, where he set up a studio called The Foundry and continued painting. Nunn moved again in 1980 to his new Morningtown Studio east of Palestine, where he began to create lithographs in addition to paintings. Exhibitions of Nunn’s works have been held at the Tyler Museum of Art, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Museum of East Texas, and the University of Texas at Tyler. His work was published in Ancel E. Nunn: A Timeless World, And Where Goes the Parade, and many magazines and other publications. Nunn also illustrated several works for A.C. Greene and Leon Hale and his works inspired the poetry of Samuel Woolvin in Remnants of Change . Ancel Nunn died on December 24, 1999.While much of his early work was nostalgic in nature and reflected regionalist images, many of his later works possess somewhat surreal elements. Using common objects such as chairs, doors, and gates he examines the themes of life, change and death. Nunn's art is full of paradox and irony. There is a timelessness and stillness even when skies are filled with tumultuous clouds. Objects animate and inanimate are lovingly painted in realistic detail. They are then transformed by unexpected spatial settings and unusual juxtaposing with often seemingly unrelated items. He maddeningly appropriates all history and events to reconstruct his own parables of life. His appropriations are as likely to come from the history of art as from the personal events of his own life. He playfully involves us in his journey of mental and metaphysical gymnastics, and we are delighted. We are delighted because of his powerful symbols of the familiar; we are intrigued by his allusions to the unfamiliar.