Sophomore Gaby Bartczak, sold a piece at the 2024 Houston rodeo art auction for $15,000 when she was just a freshman. This year, she’ll have a second piece go up for auction.
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has displayed art since 1965, using its platform to help advance young artists in their craft. The rodeo began as a competition to make a poster exhibiting Texas pride. Now, over $300,000 in scholarships are awarded to art students each year.
At the highest levels, the pieces exhibited can auction for over $200,000. The highest selling piece at the 2024 rodeo art auction sold for $275,000, and most high winners sell their pieces somewhere in a similar range.
Although the rodeo has had over 10 million submissions since opening the art program, not many make it to the auctioning level. Far fewer students make it to auctioning yearly. This is, in part, because of the long process of making it to the highest level of the competition.
“It’s something for our whole class, so anyone can participate,” Bartczak said. “So you just have to do a sketch and then you have a couple months to complete it, and then you have to do some paperwork explaining your piece and then it gets submitted.”
Bartczak is hoping to place even better this year. Last year she placed as Best of Show.
Her submitted piece was a cowboy on a mule, done in acrylic paint on canvas.
“We were supposed to do something Western-themed , so I made a picture of this cowboy when I was hiking, and he was leading a mule train,” Bartczak said.
The rodeo does more than give young artists the opportunity to sell their art, scholarships to art schools or programs may be awarded to outstanding artists. In 2024, 15 art scholarships worth $20,000 were granted to a group of seniors.
Qindeel Butt, her art teacher, praised the work.
“So with my level two students, I usually start them off with rodeo because there are so many donors, which can get you money if you do well enough,” Butt said. “Gaby’s the student I’ve taught that has won the most money.
The Houston Rodeo is expected to award $28 million in scholarships in 2025, though the number going to art students is unknown.
“I wish more students knew about the scholarships available for competitors at the rodeo, and I think a lot more high schoolers would compete if they knew about all the opportunities,” Butt said.
The rodeo’s art auction lasts March 7-22.
