With previews of gallery exhibitions, museum shows and auctions, Western Art Collector is the premier monthly magazine for collectors searching for works by talented living and past artists who depict the West in paintings and sculptures.
In the past three months I have participated in and listened to about five panels on Western art. One of the concerns that comes up every time is if successive generations will appreciate, and collect, Western art as much as we do? This is a valid concern but I believe there are things we can do now to secure this art we love well into the future. I think concern should always be followed by action. And what are these actions? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and I think the first thing we can do is figure out ways to preserve the historical aspect of Western art. For example, last year the Couse-Sharp Historic Site in Taos, New Mexico, purchased an old gallery space next door to…
Regarded as one of the most important Western films ever made, Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 masterpiece The Wild Bunch will celebrate its 50th anniversary on May 11 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Events will kick off at 1 p.m at Gerald Peters Gallery, where author W.K. Stratton will discuss his new book The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, which dives deep into the creation of the revered film, which reaffirmed the role of the Western during a chaotic period of growth and development within Hollywood. The event, which is free and open to the public, will also include a book signing by Stratton. Then, at 4 p.m., there will be a screening of the film at the Screen on the campus…
Now open at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is The Chisholm Kid, Lone Fighter for Justice for All, an exhibition that takes a deep look at a revolutionary comic strip that brought the West to a primarily black audience in the 1950s. In August of 1950, the Smith-Mann syndication company published a groundbreaking eight-page color comic insert featuring 11 black comic strips. The insert was distributed by the Pittsburgh Courier, the pre-eminent black newspaper of the era. One of the 11 strips was The Chisholm Kid, which featured the first African-American cowboy character to ever appear in a comic strip. The strip, which ran in color through 1954 and in black-and-white until 1956, paid homage to the black cowboys who drove cattle on the Chisholm Trail from Texas to…
Opening May 18 at the Tucson Museum of Art in Tucson, Arizona, is Travelogue: Grand Destinations and Personal Journeys, which will highlight historic and contemporary works from the permanent collection, as well as key works on loan, that celebrate travel to exotic and grand destinations. The exhibition, which will open in the James J. and Louise R. Glasser Galleries within the museum, will survey more than 250 years of travel to destinations all around the globe, including the American West. Works of art will include paintings, drawings, photographs, graphics and travel ephemera. Public programs are planned throughout the run of the exhibition, which continues through September 29. The show is organized by the Tucson Museum of Art and co-curated by museum curators Julie Sasse and Christine Brindza. “Artists have long…
In February the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville, Texas, named Darrell Beauchamp as the museum’s new executive director. Beauchamp, a Texas native, has most recently served as the executive director of the Western Heritage Museum and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame in Hobbs, New Mexico. He has spent the last 33 years at museums all around the country, including serving as the founding executive director of the Pearce Museum in Corsicana, Texas, and as the CEO for several world-class museums, including the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana, and the Briscoe Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Beauchamp, a father of three grown children, earned a doctorate from Texas A&M University–Commerce. “I am thrilled to have been appointed as the director of the Museum of Western Art in…
Now open at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles is On Fire: Transcendent Landscapes by Michael Scott, which features five large-scale paintings of fire in various Western landscapes. The exhibition, which opened in September 2018, will allow visitors to “observe the alchemy of anger or the rebirth of life,” according to the New Mexico artist. The museum notes that the exhibition has been years in the works, but has taken a particular relevance after devastating wildfires, including several deadly blazes in California, destroyed communities, homes and forests throughout the country. “These paintings are some of the best and most intense that I’ve seen from this artist, and together offer a comprehensive visual exploration of fire, from tiny embers to raging infernos,” says Amy Scott, the Autry’s…
