American Art Collaborative

Lester exhibited with the Lone Star Printmakers group, at the Texas Centennial, and at the New York World's Fair of 1939. In the 1940s, he joined the art faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for the remainder of his career. During the Great Depression, Lester worked as a staff artist for the Civilian Conservation Corps, traveling and sketching in the Palo Duro country. In its harsh color and barren forms, "Cypress Fen" conveys the haunting emptiness of the Panhandle canyonlands.