Creative Connections

21 07, 2021

The West Personified Across the World

2021-08-11T17:05:06-05:00July 21st, 2021|0 Comments

Our current exhibit, Picturing the American West, is a thematic installation that invites you, the viewer, to explore new contexts and perspectives on Western American Art. The artworks are grouped around four themes, one of which is Western Archetypes. This theme is largely centered around an image of Buffalo Bill Cody in Charles Russell’s 1917 painting, Buffalo Bill’s Duel with Yellowhand. Buffalo Bill's Duel With Yellowhand | Charles M. Russell | 1917 | Oil on canvas | 29.875 x 47.875 inches Buffalo Bill Cody, ca. 1875, public domain Buffalo Bill is the west personified. One story [...]

16 06, 2021

Where the Buffalo Roam

2021-08-11T17:19:18-05:00June 16th, 2021|3 Comments

Our current exhibit, Picturing the American West, focuses on 4 different themes, one of which centers around the essential role the American bison – what is commonly referred to as buffalo – played in the lives of Native Americans. Indians Hunting Buffalo (Wild Men's Meat; Buffalo Hunt) | Charles M. Russell | 1894 | Oil on canvas | 24.125 x 36.125 inches   Wounded (The Wounded Buffalo) | Charles M. Russell | 1909 | Oil on canvas | 19.975 x 30.125 inches Historians estimate that in the late 18th century, 30 to 60 million buffalo once [...]

12 03, 2021

The Prairie Ocean

2021-08-11T17:28:52-05:00March 12th, 2021|0 Comments

*The following is researched and written by Dr. Mark Thistlethwaite, retired Kay and Velma Kimbell Chair of Art History TCU School of Art* Seeing a work of art “in a different light,” as the apt title of the Sid Richardson Museum’s Winslow Homer-Frederic Remington exhibition suggests, really can change the way we perceive it. This was brought home to me when I came upon the museum’s great painting The Buffalo Runners–Big Horn Basin (1909) in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s recent exhibition Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington. This dynamic Remington composition was installed adjacent [...]

17 02, 2021

Art for the Masses

2021-08-11T17:36:56-05:00February 17th, 2021|0 Comments

As mentioned in a previous blog post, one of the similarities between Frederic Remington and Winslow Homer as demonstrated through our current exhibit, In a Different Light: Winslow Homer & Frederic Remington, is that both artists made their start as illustrators capturing the imagination of the American public through their creation of popular images in publications such as Harper’s Weekly, Collier’s, and Scribner’s Monthly. Cover of Collier’s Magazine with art by Frederic Remington, March 18, 1905, Public Domain How did they disseminate their illustrations on such a large scale? Through the process of printmaking. What is printmaking? Printmaking [...]

16 12, 2020

A Cowboy Christmas

2021-03-23T20:17:16-05:00December 16th, 2020|2 Comments

One aspect of our current exhibit In A Different Light: Winslow Homer & Frederic Remington, is the examination of the illustration career of both artists as a defining element of their success among the American public. On display is a great example of how Remington’s art was disseminated in printed form with a copy of the December 21, 1889 issue of Harper’s Weekly. Here we have a boisterous group of cowboys in revelry during the beloved Christmas holiday. “Cow-Boys Coming to Town for Christmas” | Frederic Remington (1861-1909) | 1889 | Wood Block and Magazine Print | Sid Richardson [...]

10 07, 2020

Destination Seaside

2021-08-11T17:52:47-05:00July 10th, 2020|1 Comment

Our current exhibit, In a Different Light: Winslow Homer & Frederic Remington, features a large 1882 painting by Homer titled Two Figures by the Sea. Winslow Homer (1836-1910) | Two Figures by the Sea | 1882 | Oil on canvas | Denver Art Museum | 1935.8 This sparse composition avoids direct narrative, but simply implies the consternation of the two huddled women staring out for sign of a ship in stormy waters. One of Homer’s early dramatic confrontations between man and the sea, this painting was created during the artist’s time spent in Cullercoats, England. Cullercoats, England Homer had originally travelled to [...]

15 04, 2020

The Sid from Home

2022-01-12T16:44:56-06:00April 15th, 2020|2 Comments

Infectious disease has always been a presence in Anglo-settled North America. Some of the earliest were dysentery and fevers in 17th-century colonial settlements. Then came about the smallpox and diphtheria of the early 18th century. And then there was the yellow fever and cholera of the late 18th and 19th centuries.[1] Emergency hospital during influenza epidemic, Camp Funston, Kansas. Emergency hospital during influenza epidemic (NCP 1603), National Museum of Health and Medicine. Public Domain. And by far one of the world's most serious natural catastrophes of the 20th century was the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. In the American [...]

15 01, 2020

The Lucky Wildcatter

2022-01-12T17:11:01-06:00January 15th, 2020|1 Comment

The Lucas gusher at Spindletop, January 10, 1901, Original photo by John Trost On January 10, 1901, Spindletop, the famous oil field in Beaumont, Texas, “gushered” in an era of transformation for the state of Texas. The development of oil in Texas helped transform its once rural economy to one spearheaded by the petroleum industry and, likewise, steered its population from rural to urban. In 1900, only 17% of Texans lived in urban centers while 83% of the state’s population was rural. Flash forward to a little over a hundred years later in 2010, when we see those numbers flipped [...]

20 11, 2019

Sid Richardson Hosts the President

2022-01-12T17:24:04-06:00November 20th, 2019|0 Comments

**Researched and written by independent scholar Deborah Reed** How did the seventh child of an East Texas peach farmer and saloon owner become America’s richest man and host to the President of the United States?  Like any good story involving Sid Richardson, one should settle down for a spell of swapping spit over the fence. The first time Sid Richardson hosted a president was in the summer of 1937.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt left Washington for a fishing trip on the Texas coast Friday, April 30.  However, Richardson’s part of the story starts much earlier with meeting the President’s second [...]

16 10, 2019

The Most Famous Architect Nobody Knows

2022-01-12T17:33:33-06:00October 16th, 2019|0 Comments

Memories of Carroll Smith, Chief Draftsman for the Richardson/Bass Companies – 2006, Oral History conducted by former museum staff, Debi Carl. Debi Carl:  Tell me about the island.  I’ve never had the opportunity to go there.  I think I know the story about how Sid acquired it.   What I’ve heard Clint Murchison owned the one adjacent to it and Sid spent so much time down there that Clint said, “The one next door’s for sale, why don’t you just buy it?”  (Laughter) And he did. Carroll Smith:  He got it for a song.  He didn’t have to pay very much [...]