That Day: Laura Wilson

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    Dallas-based photographer Laura Wilson stands for a portrait in a darkroom at The Color Lab, Friday, Aug. 14, 2015. Wilson has a retrospective show opening in September at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth titled "That Day: Laura Wilson." Her printing was done at The Color Lab by Robert Messina.

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    Laura Wilson talks about printing needs with Robert Messina at The Color Lab, where her custom prints were being made on Aug. 21, 2014. A little more than a year later her retrospective show, "That Day: Laura Wilson," is set to open at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. Messina did the custom black and white printing. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    A clothesline serves as a drying place for long test strips during the printing of Laura Wilson's work at The Color Lab on Jan. 16, 2015. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Robert Messina smiles as he emerges from the large darkroom where he makes enlargements by projecting the images on the wall and affixing the photographic paper with magnets. One of the prints in progress is seen hanging to dry. Messina did all the custom black and white printing for "That Day: Laura Wilson," opening in September at the Amon Carter Museum. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Laura Wilson numbers and signs a print during a visit to The Color Lab, where her custom prints are made by Robert Messina. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Two sizes of work prints are seen on the counter at The Color Lab, where Robert Messina made the prints for Laura Wilson's show at the Amon Carter Museum. The show is scheduled in conjunction with the release of a new book that is a retrospective of her career. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Greg Bahr (left) and Tim Belknap check the level of an image while hanging the "That Day: Laura Wilson" photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. Bahr is the lead preparator and Belknap is the installations manager. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Greg Bahr uses a lift while affixing the show title to the wall in the upstairs gallery at the Amon Carter Museum while setting up the "That Day: Laura Wilson" photography exhibit. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Greg Bahr sets hanging hardware for an image from Laura Wilson's "Grit and Glory" series while setting up the "That Day: Laura Wilson" photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    John Rohrbach, curator of photographs, watches as (from left) Les Hofheinz, Greg Bahr and Jim Belknap adjust the placement of an image while hanging the "That Day: Laura Wilson" photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Les Hofheinz, carpenter and assistant preparator, takes measurements while setting up the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Wednesday Aug. 19, 2015. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    From left, Tim Smith, exhibitions designer and director of installations; John Rohrbach, curator of photographs; and Greg Bahr, lead preparator, discuss title slides while setting up the "That Day: Laura Wilson" photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    A huge print stands on an A-frame waiting to be hung as Tim Smith, left, and Jim Belknap discuss the placement of images while hanging the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit in Gallery A1 at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Tuesday Aug. 25, 2015. Belknap is Intallations Manager and Smith is Exhibition Designer and Director of Installations. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Jim Belknap, left, and Tim Smith work among a floor full of images while hanging the "That Day: Laura Wilson" photography exhibit in Gallery A1 at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. Belknap is installations manager and Smith is exhibition designer and director of installations. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Jim Belknap, left, uses a tape measure to mark the spot for another framed image as Tim Smith directs while hanging the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit in Gallery A1 at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Tuesday Aug. 25, 2015. Belknap is Installations Manager and Smith is Exhibition Designer and Director of Installations. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    From left, John Rohrbach, Senior Curator of Photographs and Tim Smith, Exhibition Designer and Director of Installations tell Jim Belknap and Les Hofheinz that two images (far right) were hung in the wrong place and need to be moved while setting up the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Wednesday Aug. 19, 2015. Belknap is Installations Manager and Hofheinz is the Assistant Preparator. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    John Rohrbach, Curator of Photographs, adjusts the placement of text while preparing for the opening of the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Wednesday Aug. 19, 2015. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Tim Smith, left, Exhibition Designer and Director of Installations talks with Installations Manager Jim Belknap as work continues hanging the downstairs room of the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Tuesday August 25, 2015.

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    A roll of adhesive text sits on the floor waiting to be affixed to a wall in Gallery A1 during the hanging of the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Tuesday Aug. 25, 2015. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Les Hofheinz, Assistant Preparator and Lead Preparator Greg Bahr work from a lift as Tim Smith, Exhibition Designer and Director of Installations (center) and Jim Belknap, Installations Manager (right) work on the opposite wall while hanging the That Day: Laura Wilson photography exhibit in the Gallery A1 on the first floor at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Tuesday Aug. 25, 2015. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

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    Exhibition Designer and Director of Installations, Tim Smith, walks through Gallery 20, the upstairs part of the exhibit, after it was finished and ready for opening night of the That Day: Laura Wilson show at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas Tuesday Aug. 25, 2015. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)

Hollywood actor Owen Wilson has in his home “a great picture that my mom took of Donald Judd. He’s a great artist, and it’s in Marfa. It may have been one of the last photographs of him that was taken before he passed away.”

Owen pauses and says, “I think of her as my mom, and my mom is an artist.” The picture of Judd “is an artist taking a picture of an artist. Maybe that’s why she’s able to get such good photographs. She has the eye of an artist.”

Indeed she does. Laura Wilson’s lavish new book is That Day: Pictures in the American West. It is 231 pages of stunning images, which include mostly black-and-white portraits of fighter pilots, lion hunters, six-man high school football players, Hutterites and other images of the American West.

She explores dogfighting and cockfighting, debutantes, border issues, Lambshead Ranch in West Texas and the isolation and poverty of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Her portraits of memorable faces include those of singer-songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore, actor Harry Dean Stanton, playwright Sam Shepard and an artist-photographer who influenced her own work, the great Richard Avedon.

In addition to the book, Wilson will open on Saturday her second major exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, where That Day: Laura Wilson will showcase 74 photographs. As with many born during World War II, Wilson grew up watching Western movies and reading the Cowboy literature of America’s wild West.

“There is the myth and the romantic West, which are, of course, deep within me, growing up as I did in the 1950s,” she says. “I was very interested in the painting and the architecture of the West. I like the open space. I like everything about it.”

Text by Michael Granberry/The Dallas Morning News