East Texas native James Surls is among the most acclaimed Texas artists of the late twentieth century and has found great success outside the state, as well. Surls's sculptures are most inspired by nature but also reveal metaphorical and mythological content. In a 2009 catalog for The Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas, Patterson Sims wrote that Surls's works are, "studies of myths, science, and human behavior." After graduating from Sam Houston State University and The Cranbrook Academy of Art, he taught at Southern Methodist University and later at the University of Houston and the Lawndale Art Center, Houston. Surls's work is held in many museum collections, and he has had numerous solo exhibitions, including the Dallas Museum of Art in 1984 and The Meadows Museum, Dallas, in 2003.