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Trail drives were a big but short-lived venture. After the Civil War, there was a brief period in which millions of cattle were driven from Texas to northern markets, traveling over the vast open range. Historians estimate that cowboys drove 6-9 million head of cattle from the Lone Star state to Kansas between 1867-1886. With the introduction of barbed wire, the expansion of railroads, and the development of meat packing plants near ranching areas, epic cattle drives like the one documented in the story Lonesome Dove were no longer necessary. Rarely do we have the opportunity to hear firsthand from [...]

Tomorrow our new exhibit Lonesome Dove: The Art of Story opens to the public. This exhibition celebrates Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning tale and traces the path of its development from McMurtry’s first drafts to the original movie script to the legendary miniseries. Lonesome Dove: The Art of Story | exhibition poster | ( Poster Image: Lonesome Dove from JJ Pumphrey General Merchandise Store | Cary White (1948-) | Fall, 1987 | Sandblasted rough-sawn lumber, house paint | The Witliff collections, Alkek Library, texas State University ) For the first time ever, Lonesome Dove Collection works from the Wittliff [...]

*Iconic Western painter Frederic Remington began his career drawing black and white illustrations for the most popular magazines in America. Yet he yearned to be known as an artist, not just an illustrator, and he strategically drew inspiration from the museums and art galleries of New York City.  Friends with American Impressionist Childe Hassam and a number of young American painters, Remington first saw the work of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and other modern French painters at the newly opened Durand-Ruel Gallery whose owner became an early proponent of French Impressionism. Following over a century of tradition, French [...]

Charles M. Russell | First Wagon Trail (First Wagon Tracks) | 1908 | Pencil, watercolor and gouache on paper | 18 1/4 x 27 inches The scene from Russell’s exquisite watercolor from 1908, First Wagon Trail, would have been set in the 1840s, when wagon trains heading to west first cut paths across the plains. These warriors show little evidence of contact with whites. The wagon tracks have these men wondering what kind of sizable beast has left the tracks. Originally, between about 1811 and 1840, one could only traverse the trails across the plains by foot or [...]

Charles M. Russell | He Snaked Old Texas Pete Right Out of His Wicky-up, Gun and All | 1905 | Watercolor, pencil & gouache on paper | 12 3/8 inches x 17 1/8 inches During the winter of 1904, while the Russells were staying with fellow illustrator John N. Marchand in New York, Charlie was not made short of work. He received several illustration jobs while in town: Scribner’s, Outing, Leslie’s, and McClure’s magazines. He Snaked Old Texas Pete Right Out of His Wicky-up, Gun and All was one of the pictures that Russell painted for McClure’s Magazine [...]