Charles Beckendorf Gallery Blog

"The portrait...is of Pedro Torres, a cowboy, or a vaquero. He has been a vaquero since his teens and is a descendant of many generations of vaqueros.  Every basic skill the American cowboy uses was learned from the vaquero. The cattle culture in Texas came from Mexico in the late 1600s and was well developed long before any Anglo cowboy ever came on the scene to change the name vaquero to buckaroo, chapparreras to chaps, masteno to mustang, or rancho to ranch. After 300 years, the vaquero still rides on Texas ranches. Pedro Torres has worked on the Chaparrosa Ranch for...

What made you all come to Fredericksburg and what were the early days like? It was more of a farm and ranch town. There wasn’t too much going on. For us to go to school, it took a good 1.5 hours to and back. We were the first kids on in the morning and the last in the evening. It was an all day adventure to go to school. When people talk about their parents, we would talk about dad being an artist and people didn’t know what to do with that. They'd ask, “Do you grow or raise anything?”...

Charles Beckendorf Day This year, June 17th was proclaimed Charles Beckendorf Day by Mayor Langerhans of Fredericksburg. The celebration took place on the same day, Charles’s birthday, and was attended by many close friends and family.

What made you all come to Fredericksburg and what were the early days like?My mom’s mother was ill and she wanted to keep a closer eye on her. We moved to Fredericksburg in 1965 - 14 miles North of town, out in the country and our nearest neighbor was about a mile away, so moving from Houston was quite the culture shock. One of the things that shocked me was that half of the students at school came to school barefoot. At that time, the only reason people came to our town was to experience Enchanted Rock (and it wasn't even...