New exhibition at SMU showcases nearly 90 photos taken over four decades
While her sons have focused on motion pictures, Preston Hollow’s Laura Wilson has demonstrated the power of still photography.
The internationally celebrated Texas photographer is renowned for her captivating images of the American West and striking portraits of notable authors.
Her latest exhibition opened Sept. 14 at The Meadows Museum at SMU and will run through Jan. 11, 2026.
“Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson” presents photographs taken over the past four decades during her travels across Mexico, from the U.S. borderlands to Oaxaca and San Miguel de Allende.
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The nearly 90 images — most never published before — offer an expansive, often intimate glimpse of Mexican life, from colorful festivals and quiet village scenes to religious rituals and enduring traditions.
“It’s not every person’s Mexico — it’s my Mexico,” Wilson said. “Much as in the American West, the Spanish influence is elemental in Mexico. Things we consider icons of Western culture — the horse, the longhorn — came from Spain and gave rise to the vaquero or cowboy.”
The 85-year-old took some of the photos as recently as 2024, especially for this exhibition.
“Mexico is culturally vibrant — the literature, the art, the sculpture, the architecture,” she said. “The architects, the writers, and even the collectors that I have focused on are as much a part of modern Mexico, and of my appreciation of Mexico, as the laboring paisano or the fire-breather.”
The Meadows Museum organized “Roaming Mexico” with funding from The Meadows Foundation and Wilson’s involvement with the curation and installation.
She credited the thoughtful approach of her longtime collaborator, designer Gregory Wakabayashi, with adding an extra layer of intimacy and narrative clarity to the exhibition and the accompanying illustrated book.
A native of Massachusetts, Wilson has lived in Dallas since 1965 and is the mother of three sons: Andrew, Owen, and Luke. She has published six books of photographs, and her images have appeared in such periodicals as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and London’s Sunday Times Magazine.
She was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 2019.
Amanda W. Dotseth, The Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the museum and Centennial Chair in the Meadows School of the Arts, called it a privilege to open the fall season with Wilson’s work.
“Roaming Mexico speaks to Wilson’s admiration for and deep ties to Mexico but does so in ways that are at once sensitive, beautiful, challenging, and complex,” Dotseth said. “This exhibition offers a rare and moving look at Mexico through the eyes of one of Texas’ most compelling visual storytellers.”
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