From the Vault

During our trip down memory lane last month, we revisited the history of the museum and how it first opened its doors back in 1982. We shared that Sid began collecting in 1942 until his death in 1959. So where did the paintings hang before the museum was founded? Well, in addition to being temporarily housed at the Amon Carter Museum starting in 1975, many artworks from Sid’s collection travelled the world on loan to various exhibitions. Let’s follow the journey some paintings have made to the many institutions and special exhibits our collection has been displayed. National Cowboy [...]

A few months ago, the museum hosted a lecture by Byron Price, Director of Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma. During the program, Price discussed Charles Russell’s depictions of wild animals, which comprise roughly a quarter of the artist’s total production of paintings, drawings and sculpture! Even when animals are not the principal focus of a particular work, their presence is often palpable in the skins, horns, bones and effigies the artist added to many scenes in the interest of authenticity and allegory. Byron Price’s presentation explored Russell’s animal [...]

Today, Charles M. Russell is a household name among patrons of art of the American West. Who do art historians consistently credit for being the reason we have the beautiful Russell artworks that not only grace our galleries at the Sid Richardson Museum, but many public and private collections around the world? The artist’s wife, Nancy Cooper Russell. Born in 1874 in Kentucky, Nancy Cooper moved with her family to Montana in 1890. Four years later, at the age of 16, Nancy was left to fend for herself and eventually found work as a live-in housekeeper for a couple in [...]

While Pope Francis travels around the US this week, I was reminded of a previous visit from the papal office. In October of 1965, Pope Paul VI visited the U.S. to address the United Nations in New York City. While he was there, President Lyndon Johnson traveled to NYC to call upon the pope at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Shown in the photo, left to right: Mrs. Lyndon Johnson (Ladybird); Luci Johnson, daughter of the Johnsons; unknown official; Pope Paul VI; President Lyndon Johnson. Photograph courtesy LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, Texas. Before the visit, the White House Staff [...]

Between 1911 and 1916, Charles Russell’s first national exhibition “The West That Has Passed” was held in great cities like New York, Chicago, and Pittsburgh and across the pond in London. The exhibition was a significant milestone in Russell’s career. Although it didn’t garner many sales, the exhibit did earn the respect of critics, who had begun to take the cowboy artist seriously. News of Russell’s success soon spread. Nancy and Charlie posing on board a ship headed to Savannah for a well-deserved vacation after the successful “West That Has Passed” exhibition in New York. Nancy handed her Kodak [...]

On this day in 1891, Sid Richardson was born. During his lifetime, Sid demonstrated two defining characteristics: an ability to make lasting friendships and the ability to make money. John Connally, Sid Richardson, Lyndon Johnson, Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce Dinner, 1957. Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas. Though he was friends with many famous people throughout his career, including at the time, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, and Texas Congressman Sam Rayburn and Senator Lyndon Johnson, Sid shied away from the public [...]

Last week we temporarily installed a display in the galleries of a book from the museum’s library by folklorist and author J. Frank Dobie, The Longhorns -- originally from the library of Sid Richardson. Sid Richardson enjoyed a warm friendship with Dobie who, at Sid’s invitation, used Richardson’s San Jose Island ranch as a writer’s haven in 1939 when he wrote The Longhorns. Each print edition of The Longhorns opens with a dedication to Sid, and each of the twenty chapters, illustrated by Tom Lea, is dedicated to a significant individual in Dobie’s life: TO SID W. RICHARDSON who is attempting [...]

Sunday marked SRM artist Peter Hurd’s birthday. During the Great Depression era, like many of his peers, Hurd joined the New Deal art projects to execute several post office murals in locations such as Dallas and Big Spring, Texas and Alamogordo, New Mexico, his native state. In Texas alone, the federal government commissioned 106 artworks for 69 post offices and federal buildings. Several of these pieces are now lost. As a scholar and admirer of American and Texas art of the 1930s, I have made it my personal mission to visit and document the remaining. Peter Hurd, O Pioneers, 1938, [...]

“In the city men shake hands and call each other friends but it’s the lonesome places that ties their harts together and harts do not forget.” - Charles M. Russell to Santa Fe [Tom Conway], March 24, 1917 Last week we welcomed back home one of our own – Charles Russell’s Man’s Weapons Are Useless When Nature Goes Armed. Originally hung in Sid Richardson's dining room at his San Jose Island home, this painting is a favorite among our visitors and had been out on loan with the traveling exhibition, Harmless Hunter: The Wildlife Work of Charles M. Russell, which [...]