From 1925 to 1960, the MFAH held an annual exhibition of Houston artists, acquiring the winning piece into the collection. This is the museum’s only image of 1951’s winner, and the grainy ambiguity of this intriguingly bizarre creature—is it a rooster? an insect?—only adds to its fascination. I’m curious about this mysterious work by a long-forgotten Houston artist! For decades after the “HouAnn” show was abandoned, you rarely saw local artists on view. But to the museum’s credit, they’re now routinely sprinkled, without comment, throughout the galleries. The hardest thing is to appreciate what’s in your own backyard.

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