In Bayou Willows, Gadbois pushes the limits of representation in a manner akin to Monet’s late-stage Impressionism. Employing naturalistic color and illusions, lacking a traditional composition with foreground and background, Bayou Willows takes the late Impressionism of Monet a step further toward pure abstraction. With its sweeping gestures and vigorous swaths of green, Bayou Willows reinterprets nature, carving away its complexities, until its essence, the ghost of nature, appears on canvas. Bayou Willows shows a cluster of trees enveloped in a thick, green haze. These trees, which stretch the entire width of the canvas, are rendered delicately with shading and contouring. Despite this fact and of the specificity inherent to the work’s title, these trees do not necessarily represent a scene from nature. Rather, in Platonic jargon, Gadbois captures “treeness,” its universality and intrinsicality, through color, rhythm, and fluidity.

Born in Houston, Gadbois graduated from Lamar High School. He studied at the University of Houston under the tutelage of Robert Preusser and Lowell Collins. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1952. The following year, Gadbois continued his studies in Houston and earned a master’s degree of letters. He went on to serve in the U.S. Army and work for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Glassell School of Art, and the Houston Independent School District. Gadbois has exhibited at the MFAH, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Witte Museum. His works now belong in the collections of the University of Texas at Austin, the MFAH, and the Longview Museum of Fine Arts.