Behind the Scenes

For the third installment of our summer blog series, Meet & Greet, let’s catch up with Les Cleere, our Site and Exhibitions Coordinator. Describe your job. I oversee the museum’s operating systems, HVAC, and lighting. I coordinate both sub-contractors involved in building maintenance and art handlers helping to setup for art installations/de-installations. I also setup and assist with special events and education programs. What does an average day entail? Changing lighting in the galleries as needed prior to morning tours, securing loading zone for the tour buses, and in some instances setting up seating in a gallery for tours or [...]

Continuing our summer blog series, Meet & Greet, let’s get acquainted with the Sid Richardson Museum’s Director of Education Resources, Betsy Thomas. Describe your job. I oversee the Archives and Library, which houses all records related to the Museum’s collection and history (including ads and reproductions of the Museum’s artworks). As a part of the Education Department, I co-teach in the studio classroom, working with the Director of School and Family Programs in teaching hands-on art activities related to the works displayed in the Museum. I also assist the Museum Director with exhibition preparation and copyediting of Museum publications. What [...]

I recently made a trip out to Dutch Branch Ranch, located southwest of Fort Worth. Sid Richardson bought the ranch in 1946. Previously, Dutch Branch Ranch was owned by Elliot Roosevelt, son of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt. During Elliot’s tenure, President Roosevelt visited his son out on the Texas homestead on multiple occasions. Carlton Penn, the ranch foreman while the Roosevelt’s occupied the ranch, stayed on as foreman when Mr. Richardson took over operation in the 1940s. Mr. Richardson never lived on the property, but rather it was one of his local bases for his ranching business. The ranch [...]

Over the course of this summer, we will be featuring a new blog series: Meet & Greet. These posts are an opportunity for our readers to get to know members of our staff here at the Sid Richardson Museum. For the first post in our series, I’d like to introduce you to Katherine Yount, Director of School and Family Programs. Describe your job. I work with our education department to plan and implement school tours as well as children and family programs. These programs include both gallery experiences and studio art making. I also manage our 15 wonderful docents who [...]

Upon special occasions, the Sid Richardson loans works from the collection to other institutions. This spring, Charlie Russell’s Three Generations is taking a road trip up to Canyon, Texas to be included in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum’s exhibition - Madonnas of the Prairie: Depictions of Women in the American West. Charles M. Russell, Three Generations, 1897, Oil on canvas, 17 1/8 x 24 1/4 inches Organized by Michael Grauer, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs & Curator of Art and Western Heritage, the exhibition highlights the representation of women in the American West. Grauer notes: In the mid-nineteenth century [...]

In keeping with Sid W. Richardson’s vision of helping the people of his native state, the Sid Richardson Museum and Foundation embarked on a project for 2013 in which we donated over 3,000 books to 479 libraries in Texas. We’ve enjoyed reading the flood of thank you letters in return. The institutions selected service populations of 50,000 or less. Many of these libraries are very small and often have only one staff member. For some, this was the first they had heard of the Sid Richardson Museum, so we are happy to be able to share our collection and resources [...]

In celebration of our exhibition Western Treasures and the opening of the new Sundance Square Plaza, the Sid Richardson Museum held a reception for our downtown neighbors. The evening was filled with live music, friendly conversation, and remarkable works of art. Tom Price, Mayor Betsy Price, and Ed Bass Terrell Lamb, Dee Steer, Pete Geren, and Vickie Dickerson David Shwarz and Walter Burr Andrew Walker, Charlotte Robinson, and John Robinson During the event, our guests received behind-the-scenes insight as Mr. Bass expounded on the design for the exhibition. In addition to the [...]

Rachel Moss is an education major at TCU in her senior year. This fall, Rachel volunteered as an intern at the Sid Richardson Museum in the education department under the supervision of Kat Yount, Director of School and Family Programs. We sat down with Rachel to hear about her internship experience at SRM. Describe your internship project. RM: During the past two months, I have been working on two different projects. The first is a storytelling binder for the museum docents. I collected stories from the museum's library, TCU's library, books of Native American legends, and online sources and compiled [...]

Working at a museum located in historic Sundance Square, it is important for our docents to have a better understanding of Fort Worth history when relating to our visitors. Earlier this week, we took our docents on a visit to Fort Worth’s Oakwood Cemetery located on the Northside. Because the old city cemetery was full, in 1879 John Peter Smith gave 20 acres to Fort Worth to create this cemetery in which to bury his recently deceased step son.  The space was later enlarged to 100 acres, which actually encompasses 3 cemeteries:  Oakwood, Calvary, and Trinity. Oakwood Cemetery is the resting [...]

As part of the new exhibition, Western Treasures, the Sid Richardson Museum presents some paintings that have been hiding in the vault for a while, including one work that has never been on public display in our museum. To get these works exhibition-ready, we requested the assistance of Lowy Frame and Restoration Co. in New York. The museum worked with Lowy’s Wayne Reynolds, Master Gilder and Frame Conservator, to hand-select the frame design for each painting. Ornate French frame During the period when Sid Richardson began collecting the works of Remington and Russell, Western art collectors preferred ornate, [...]