Curator’s Corner

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 [...]

  Bringing to life unforgettable characters and recalling significant events have always been fundamental tasks that the artistic imagination has addressed. In Remington & Russell, Retold, native peoples, explorers, mountain men, buffalo hunters and soldiers are participants in such events as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Oregon Trail, and the Indian Wars, presenting a narrative of the 19th-century American West via 38 paintings by the preeminent storytellers of the American West, Frederic Remington (1861-1909) and Charles Russell (1864-1926). Unfolding largely in chronological order of the year the artworks were completed, the paintings in Remington & Russell, Retold span 22 [...]

From time to time, I like to break away from my office to walk through our museum galleries and enjoy the artwork that I often write about on this blog. During one of those leisurely strolls I caught a glimpse of something that was unfamiliar. In one of the paintings from our current exhibition, Take Two, I noticed a strange creature hanging from the belt of one of the figures. When I looked closely, I noticed another figure sporting a similar accessory. I then began to carefully examine the rest of the Catlin images and spotted this particular object in [...]

Our current exhibition, Take Two: George Catlin Revisits the West, features a selection of paintings from Catlin’s Second Indian Gallery. These works revisit paintings from Catlin’s First Indian Gallery, a collection of works that the artist tried to sell to the U.S. government – on several occasions. Historically, artists in Europe and elsewhere were financially supported through commissions and patronage, often from the church or governing monarchy. Unfortunately for Catlin, the congressmen of the U.S. government generally considered artistic patronage to be a minor concern, focusing more efforts on the controversial expansion of slavery into the newly acquired western territories. [...]

Like George Catlin and his summer excursions to the American West in the 1830s, many American painters were inspired by an adventurous lifestyle in the early 19th century. These artists experienced unspoiled terrain and wanted to convey the splendor and excitement of the nation’s wilderness. A well-known artistic movement from this period was that of the Hudson River School. American artists like Thomas Cole and Asher Durand used their canvases to capture the beauty of rural life and the sublimity of the untamed frontier. Influenced by Romanticism, their paintings present a dramatic and dreamy view of the country. Thomas [...]

In addition to the 17 paintings on loan from the National Gallery of Art, our current exhibition – Take Two: George Catlin Revisits the West – includes a selection of rare books on loan from a private collection. Catlin was both an artist and an author, writing and recording many of his observations and experiences from his travels West. One of the most important works on American Indians published in the 19th century was Catlin’s Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians..., which describes his travels and encounters with many tribes. Our exhibition features [...]