Pitzers Fine Arts celebrates 45 years

Pitzer’s Fine Arts celebrated 45 years of gallery ownership last weekend with a celebration of music, food and invited artists. On hand to mark the milestone was founder Rob Pitzer and his wife, Lynda, who visited the gallery early in the celebration. Gallery manager Pamela Rudd, who organized the bash, as well as artists represented by the gallery, greeted visitors and collectors who came to mark the anniversary. In the early part of the celebration, sculptor Gerald Balciar of Parker, Colorado sculpted a rabbit while visitors looked on and asked questions about his technique and background. Early in the event, watercolorist Jim Street and oil painter Betty Edmond talked with collectors about their work while Stanley Albert played guitar in the gallery’s courtyard. Later in the day, Penny Stone performed with Hill Country Honeys members Rose Gabriel on guitar and Janice Stone on the acoustic bass.

Rob Pitzer became interested in sculpture in 1978 when sculptor Kent Ullberg came to his place of business and set a small sculpture on a piano that Pitzer was trying to sell. Ullberg challenged him to sell it, which he did, and soon he was selling more sculptures than pianos. He turned his shop into a gallery, and, after a few years, left Corpus Christi, TX for Carmel, CA. His reputation for representing sculptors and their work grew. In the beginning, he focused his fine art gallery on monumental public sculpture and large scale works for private collectors.

Pitzer left Carmel in 2006 and moved his gallery to Wimberley, opening in a well-placed historic building on RR12 just steps from the square.

Visitors to Wimberley can see a number of large sculptures in the courtyard of the gallery. Inside, he expanded his representation to include fine art painters. Pitzer retired in 2020 and his sons, Tyson and Trey, manage the gallery’s general oversight. The daily operations are managed by Pamela Rudd, a successful gallery owner who grew a small gallery in Marshall, MI into a business noted by the state as a “gallery to watch.” Pitzer invited Rudd, who moved to Wimberley in 2016 with her Wandering Oaks Fine Arts gallery, to integrate her gallery with his in 2017. It proved to be a successful combination. Today, the gallery represents more than forty artists, including Kent Ullberg who challenged Pitzer to sell his work all those years ago.