Tijerina will hold second Beasley book signing in San Antonio

Andres Tijerina addresses the crowd at earlier Beasley's book signing.

For those who missed the earlier book signing of historian Andrés Tijerina’s Beasley’s Vaqueros, the author will be at the Twig Book Shop on Friday, December 16, beginning at 5 p.m. The bookstore is at 306 Pearl Parkway, Suite 106, in San Antonio For directions from your location, click here. 

Beasley’s Vaqueros presents the life and work of South Texas artist Ricardo Moreno Beasley. Between roughly 1940 and 1980, Beasley produced dozens of pen-and-ink drawings of working vaqueros, the Tejano cowboys of South Texas. His vibrant, action-packed scenes capture the joys of working with cattle, horses, and an often unforgiving landscape of cactus and mesquite.

In addition to a selection of Beasley’s work, Tijerina collected and translated an extensive interview with the artist discussing several of his poems. Despite having lived much of his life after World War II, Beasley’s art and words capture a world in which people and events from decades before his time are just as immediate—perhaps even more so—than events of the present day. More than just a testament to the talents of a singular, self-taught artist, Beasley’s Vaqueros is a testament of vaquero life in South Texas that spans two centuries.

Tijerina is a Professor of History at Austin Community College and a scholar of Tejano history. His publications include Tejano Empire: Life on the South Texas Ranchos (Texas A&M University Press, 2008) and Tejanos and Texas Under the Mexican Flag (Texas A&M University Press, 1994), which won the Presidio La Bahía Award from the Sons of the Republic of Texas and was selected for a national award from the American Association for State and Local History and was named by the American Library Association to its CHOICE List of Academic Books in America for 1996.

Books by Andrés Tijerina: