Travels with Bill

A Houston Art History Note

Bill Condon Paris 1963.

Here it is the beginning of the summer travel season, and they say it’s going to be a busy one. The Memorial Day Weekend just past saw more folks on the move by land, air and sea than any in the last 20 years. Crowded airports, crowded highways, crowded must-sees everywhere. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. As a good friend used to say, “Being places is fun. Travel is NOT fun.” Sometimes I wonder if even being places is that much fun, in the summer tourist rush.

Which is one of the reasons I won’t be joining the traveling hoards this season. Instead, I’ve opted to BE PLACES (sort of) with an inveterate Houston traveler from the past, the Earlier Houston Artist, Bill Condon. There couldn’t be a better traveling companion when it comes to seeing the world through art.  So pack your bags, visually anyway, and let’s go. We won’t even have to leave the comfort of our overstuffed armchairs and our world-class Houston air conditioning.

Bill Condon all dressed up (l) and with Houston Artist Stella Sullivan (1924-2017) (r).

Houston architect/artist William J. (Bill) Condon (1923-1998) loved being places, and he loved sending postcards from those places to his friends back home. But not just any postcards. Condon made his own, using the cardboard inserts that came in his laundered shirts. He’d cut them into postcard size blanks before he left and then work them up into place-specific cards as he went along.

Never mind that they’re addressed to someone else: Bill Condon Guanajuato 1962, to Mr. & Mrs. Chas. Burton.

So if you were a friend of this Bill, you might open your mailbox to find a wonderful little work of art greeting you from wherever he was at the moment. He must have sent thousands of them, and you can still find them around Houston, framed and ready to fill small spaces on your wall – or big spaces if you’re lucky enough to get a group. And take my word for it: when you have one, you’ll want a group!

Bill Condon Lucern Switzerland 1967.

Bill Concon Riesenrad, Vienna 1962.

Bill Condon Istanbul 1960.

Bill Condon Cemetary [sic], Saltillo 1960.

Condon was a native Houstonian.  After serving in the U.S. Army for four years during World War II, he got a degree in architecture from Rice University, and he was a practicing architect throughout his working life. It’s easy to see the architect’s eye in his work, but art was at least as much a part of him as architecture. Fellow architect and close friend, Ralph A. Anderson, Jr., said of Condon’s work: “He seems to be saying that, no matter how pretentious man is in what he builds, no matter how ugly, an other-worldly beauty exists there in spite of everything.”

Bill Condon Taxco, Mexico 1964.

Bill Condon Zurich, Switzerland n.d.

Bill Condon Denver Colorado 1969.

So crank the A/C down to Frigid, settle into that armchair, leave all that nasty summer travel business to those foolish enough to thrust themselves into it, and enjoy seeing gorgeous places on a world tour through the eyes and the art postcards of Bill Condon – never mind that they’re addressed to someone else. Today they’re for you. (Oh, yes, don’t forget a tall cool glass of something lovely to drink. It’s HOT outside!)

Bill Condon Hong Kong 1961.

Bill Condon Pátzcuaro, Mich. Mexico 1961.

Note: An earlier version of this piece appeared in the HETAG: Houston Earlier Texas Art Group Newsletter, No. 24, July 2018. All issues of the HETAG NEWSLETTER can be found on The Portal to Texas History.

And one a little closer to home: Bill Condon [Houston Skyline] n.d.