Jan Herring

Jan Herring (1923 – February 28, 2000) was an American artist. Herring was based in Clint, Texas and showed her work around the United States. Herring began showing her work in 1950 and worked as an instructor at the El Paso Museum of Art. She was inducted into the El Paso Women's Hall of Fame in 1990.

Biography Herring was born in Haver, Montana and grew up in South Dakota. She went to the Northern State Teachers' College in South Dakota. Herring also earned a degree in nursing in Columbus, Ohio, studying at the Grant Hospital. She also met her husband, a tail gunner in a B-25, and Texas A&M class of 1941 graduate, Henry Herring, in Columbus. Herring was elected into the first group of officers for the Las Artistas Verdes Chapter of the Amateur Artists Association of America in 1953. She was showing her work at the new Rio Valle Woman's Club clubhouse in 1954. In the late 1950s, she was working as a permanent art instructor at the Taubes Art Colony in Ruidoso, which she did for several years. She was an artist-in-residence at the El Paso Museum of Art in 1962.

Herring created an artist center in Clint, called the Jan Herring Design Center in 1965. In 1971, she published a book, The Painter's Composition Handbook, which discussed her painting techniques. Herring was inducted into the El Paso Women's Hall of Fame in 1990.

Herring developed Lou Gehrig's disease, but continued to paint "to the very end," according to her son. Later, she worked with the technique of using pastel underpainting on board. Herring was inspired by nature and created more than 12,000 works in different mediums. She also exhibited her work in Santa Fe, in Tulsa and throughout Texas in 1958. Also in 1958, her work was selected as part of the traveling D. D. Feldman Collection, which selected the best art work in Texas annually. In 1962, Herring showed her work at the Burr Gallery in New York. In 1966, Herring was part of an exhibition at the El Paso Museum of Art called "The Four Women Artists." She held a one-person show at the Roswell Museum in 1969. By the end of her life, she had held more than 103 one-person shows across the country.