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APRIL | PAGE 64 | 2014 OF 10,000 VOLUMES ART HISTORIAN AND LECTURER DAVID E . BRAUER MARKS HIS 38TH YEAR AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON, THIS YEAR . IS HE THE MOST BRILLIANT ART MIND IN TEXAS? FORMER STUDENT CATHERINE D. ANSPON DIGS IN. PORTRAIT AND VIGNETTES JACK THOMPSON. In this book-lined historic home, there is little separation between library and living space. Brauer reclines amidst volumes and slides, the former from an accumulation that began in his student days at St. Martin's School of Art, London, where he earned his national diploma in design. THE BOOKMAN COMETH You could say he is the last of the classicists. A man who knows his way around a library and whose own shelves hold 10,000 titles. He himself has lost count, but that number seems to be an educated guess. But his is a working trove of volumes. Forty years after he first stepped to the podium at the MFAH — 125 special lectures for the museum later (famously extemporaneous sans notes), thousands of students enlightened, hundreds of hours logged in the darkened classroom with a flickering slide projector for the Glassell School of Art, the Women's Institute, the University of Houston and Rice University — Brauer remains invincible, irascible and unrelenting in his pursuit of scholarly investigation and mindful inquiry. In an era of 140 characters, piquant sound bites and the brevity that defines social media, a man whose deep thinking is legendary can seem like the wisest relic of an age before digital, a holdover from a time pre-telly. But instead of hibernating, hoarding and pouring over his volumes, Brauer's extraordinary books form the heart and soul of a well-thumbed library. Brauer and his collection have shaped and influenced generations of students, from artists such as the Art Guys and Nestor Topchy to museum professionals including the MFAH's Margaret Mims, collectors such as Judith Kaufman and Poppi Massey and even yours truly. We have all gleaned wisdom from Brauer's lectures on wide-ranging topics from Russian art history to austere minimalism, including my best Brauer class ever on land art and the art of the road trip to the American West, which he undertook with fellow curator/art historian/HBU museum director Jim Edwards. This memorable pair, the Siskel and Ebert of the art world, also shared the honor of curating one of my favorite shows ever at The Menil Collection, "Pop Art: U.S./U.K. Connections: 1956 – 1966," which sparked one of PaperCity's most famous covers: then- model Tatiana Brehm, who would later marry Craig Massey, insouciantly posing with a stack of Warhol Brillo boxes. To profile this encyclopedic mind was no easy task. A veritable and expansive wit armed with opinions and an arsenal of quips, Brauer was impossible to pin down to a mere Q&A. Our first visit alone stretched to 20,000 words, then the tape recorder simply gave out. So here's the condensed version — like a can of Campbell's soup. 1976 OR BUST It all started with an impromptu encounter at the 1970s art- world drinkery Chaucer's in Houston's long-shuttered Plaza Hotel, where this rare, iconoclastic and brilliant mind landed in our midst. The catalyst was Dick Wray — the boisterous, big, brash painter with an ego to match, who could back it all up with talent. Wray cozied up to our visiting Scot — a painter on holiday in the U.S. who had touched down THEGENT