19th-21st Century Western Genre Art - Western genre art content from other websites

19th-21st Century Western Genre Art

Including Cowboy Art and Lore of the Historic West

Western genre art content from other websites

(above: William Hahn, Market Scene, Sansome Street, San Francisco, oil on canvas, 60 in. x 96? inches, Crocker Art Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

Albert Bierstadt: Witness to a Changing West is a 2018 exhibit at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center which says: "This major exhibition addresses Bierstadt in context of his treatment not just of majestic mountains and lakes but more prominently of bison and American Indians, whom he approached as key subjects for his art." Accessed 8/18

Albert Bierstadt: Witness to a Changing West is a 2018 exhibit at the Gilcrease Museum which says: "This exhibition will address Bierstadt's depictions of Native cultures of the Great Plains and American bison, which he approached as key subjects for his art." Also see Nov 4, 2018 article in Tulsa World. Accessed 12/18

American Museum of Western Art - The Anschutz Collection is a Denver, Colorado museum devoted to art of the American West. According to the museum's website the collection includes over 600 artworks created by over 180 artists. Works include drawings, paintings and sculptures created from the early 19th century to the present time. Listings for past or future temporary exhibits could not be found on the website. Accessed 8/20

A.R. Mitchell Memorial Museum of Western Art was established in 1981 to "honor and display the art and life of Arthur Roy Mitchell artist, educator and historical preservationist, in his home town of Trinidad, Colorado... The museum has an extensive collection of Western genre paintings, sketches and illustrations." Accessed 8/20

The Art of Harry Jackson was an exhibit held in 2014-15 at Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. Mindy Besaw, Whitney Western Art Museum Curator at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, said: "Without a doubt, Harry Jackson, can be credited as the artist who, more than any other, resurrected a dying genre of figurative art based on western subjects in the 1950s and 1960s," Accessed August, 2015

Art is Meant to be Shared: Highlights of The Eddie Basha Collection is a 2024 exhibit at the Booth Western Art Museum which says: "Eddie Basha grew up captivated by the American West. In 1971 under the encouragement and guidance of his Aunt Zelma, Eddie began collecting art. What began as a hobby quickly grew into an inspirational passion, combining his keen interest in the history of the American West, his admiration of the American Indian and his appreciation for art. His collection grew into one of the largest private collections of contemporary Western American and American Indian art in the world. This exhibition will feature a select number of works of art from what is now known as the Basha Collection." Accessed 6/24

Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media is a 2023 exhibit at the Sid Richardson Museum which says: "Though Russell was one of the most successful artists in the 1920s, thanks in no small part to the efforts of his wife and manager, Nancy Russell, he humbly valued his friendships above all else. His infectious humor, gift of narrative, and illustrated 'paper talk' letters show a very personal side of the artist. While Russell made art that was for sale, he also made many works that were intended for close friends, as well as thank you notes for both gifts and hospitality received on travels. A group of works made specifically as part of his friendship with certain individuals will be featured in the exhibit. Other highlights of the more than 30 artworks on view include the artist's sketch box and a sculpture self-portrait made of wax and mixed media -- both on loan from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art." Accessed 7/23

Charlie's Circle: The Art and Influence of Charles M. Russell is a 2017 exhibit at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West which says: "Charlie's Circle...highlights the shared passions and subjects among artists in Russell's orbit, and includes sculpture, paintings, and illustrated letters. Drawn entirely from the Whitney's permanent collection, this new show presents more than thirty works of art by Russell and his friends Ed Borein, Will James, Joe De Yong, and Philip Goodwin." Accessed 9/19

Cowboys & Indians: The Big Picture is a 2005 exhibit at the McMullen Museum of Art which says: "The magnificence of the western landscape and the high ideals of freedom and progress that galvanized Americans to settle there also drew numerous artists to document the perilous process of westward expansion." Accessed 2/19

Cowboys (paintings of) - sample of artists and works from askArt. Accessed August, 2015.

Creating the American West in Art is a 2021 exhibit at the Frist Art Museum which says: "The American West is an idea and a process as much as it is a location. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, depictions of the people, landscapes, and wildlife of the West fostered a sense of American identity that was rooted in a pioneering spirit of adventure and opportunity. Through nearly eighty paintings and sculptures ranging in date from 1822 to 1946, made by such artists as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, C. M. Russell, Frederic Remington, E. Irving Couse, John Sloan, and Maynard Dixon, this exhibition explores the nuances of a complex American West, including its often-challenging history, especially in relation to Indigenous people, and its vibrant cultural and artistic diversity." Accessed 6/21

Evolution of American Western Art: 1850-1900 is a 2025 article by Gemini AI which says: "Between 1850 and 1900 the Western genre evolved from Romantic fantasy to grounded realism, but its core themes remained constant. Early on, artists painted trappers and prey, vast landscapes, and peaceful scenes of native life in idealized tones. By 1900, painters and sculptors foregrounded the action -- rodeos, hunts, cavalry charges -- in sharp, naturalistic detail. Throughout, horses, riders, cowboys, and Indians dominated the imagery. Indeed, as Roosevelt and others noted, this body of art ensured that "the cowboy and rancher, the Indian, the horses and the cattle of the plains" would be immortalizedmetmuseum.org. The major figures -- Bierstadt, Miller, Remington, Russell and their peers -- each contributed to that enduring legacy, bridging the romantic West of legend and the hard-edged reality of the frontier." Accessed 6/25

Evolution of American Western Art: 1900 To the Present is a 2025 article by ChatGPT which says: "In summary, the themes of trapper vs. prey, horse and rider, and cowboy?Indian encounter evolved from late-romantic pictures into grounded, historically-informed imagery. Early masters like Remington and Russell established the heroic vocabulary -- charging riders, untamed landscapes, dramatic conflict. In the decades that followed, artists balanced nostalgia with authenticity. Painters like Borein vowed to show "nothing inaccurate," and sculptors like Proctor and Fraser created life-size monuments that merged romantic drama with realistic detail. By 1975 the Western genre embraced both its mythic roots and documentary instincts, resulting in a rich visual legacy of the American frontier." Accessed 6/25

A Feeling of Humanity: Western Art from the Ken Ratner Collection was a touring exhibit organized by The Rockwell Museum with the Mattatuck Museum, at The Rockwell Museum 2014-15, which says: "The exhibition... demonstrates artistic response to the distinctive western landscape and to the unique characters the area has produced. The West has been a defining national symbol during much of America's history. Although considered a region by Euro-Americans, the West was also a myth, a dream, an inspiration and a destination. As the title indicates, the major theme of the exhibition is "spirit of community." Drawn from the collection of Ken Ratner, the art integrates a multitude of traditions: landscape, portraiture and character study, animal pictures, domestic and urban scenes and Native Americans." Accessed 10/16.

Gordon McConnell - When the West Was Won is a 2018 exhibit at the Northcutt Steele Gallery at Montana State University - Billings which says: "Since the late 1980s, McConnell has created works inspired by Western film frames and informed by his sustained study of the history of the American West and its representations in literature, art, film, and photography." Accessed 4/19

J. Mark Sublette of Medicine Man Gallery, Inc. has secured permission to reprint online numerous articles concerning Western and Native American art from publishers of several paper-printed magazines. Categories include "Contemporary Painters,"Contemporary Sculptors,"Deceased Painters / Sculptors,"Collecting Antiques / Fine Art," plus others. Accessed August, 2015.

Legacy is a 2017 exhibit at the Sid Richardson Museum which says: "Legacy depicts the clash of cultures of the 19th century American West. The legacy of conflicts among cowboys, soldiers, explorers and Indigenous Americans during westward expansion continues to impact America today. The exhibition also celebrates Sid Richardson's legacy of philanthropy and collecting art. The exhibition features 42 of the Museum's dynamic paintings of the 19th century American West by Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell and their contemporaries along with three bronze sculptures by Remington and Russell and one Russell painting on loan from a private collection." Accessed 6/17

Looking West, an exhibit held February 3-August 5, 2012 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Includes 2-minute video. Accessed February, 2015.

Madonnas of the Prairie: Depictions of Women in the American West is a 2015 exhibit at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum which says: "Hosted by the Museum and organized by the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas, this exhibit features more than 100 works focusing on women in the late 19th century through the present as seen through the talents of multiple artists. The works honor women who stood bravely through a myriad of difficulties, tragedies and losses to help build this nation." Also see Delaware Art Museum coverage of the exhibit. Accessed 3/17

"Moonlighting - Frederic Remington's Nocturnes" by Joseph Phelan in Artcyclopedia is an essay about the 2003 exhibit The Color of Night at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Accessed 11/16

Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River is a 2014-15 exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum which says: "Navigating the West, a dynamic exhibition featuring sixteen iconic river paintings and fifty drawings, reveals for the first time how George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) created his art and artistic persona at a time when American painting, like the country, was dramatically shifting." Also see The Metropolitan Museum of Art press release. Accessed 3/17

The New Frontier, an exhibit held May 19, 2013 - November 3, 2013 at the Gilcrease Museum. Includes images of selected works in the exhibit. Accessed August, 2015.

Night & Day: Frederic Remington's Final Decade is a 2022 exhibit at the Sid Richardson Museum which says: "This exhibition explores works made in the final decade of Frederic Remington's life, when the artist alternated his canvases between the color dominant palettes of blue-green and yellow-orange. The works included range from 1900 to 1909, the year that Remington's life was cut short by complications due to appendicitis at the young age of forty eight. In these final years Remington was working to distance himself from his long-established reputation as an illustrator, to become accepted by the New York art world as a fine artist, as he embraced the painting style of the American Impressionists. In these late works he strove to revise his color palette, compositional structure, and brushwork as he set his Western subjects under an interchanging backdrop of the shadows of night and the dazzling light of day. Accessed 7/23

Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley was an exhibit held June 6 - August 29, 2015 at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. "In his day, Stanley was viewed as the premier painter of American Indians," said exhibition co-curator, Peter H. Hassrick, Senior Scholar and Director Emeritus at the Center. "His motivation was to give America's Native people a face as the subjects of fine art -- unlike artists George Catlin and Karl Bodmer who were driven more by the restraints of science and the desire to record the moment. Without Stanley, we would be hard pressed to find artistically well-considered images of Native Americans that span the entirety of the western United States." Accessed August, 2017.

Sculptors Who Paint: Veryl Goodnight, Donna Howell-Sickles and Rosie Sandifer, an exhibit held August 16 - November 3, 2013 at the Museum of the Southwest. Includes online exhibit catalogue. Accessed March, 2015.

"Sonora, Sedona, and Since," by Don Hedgpeth, an in-depth essay provided by the Cowboy Artists of America, which covers the history of the CAA Accessed 9/17

Treasures from the Frederic Remington Art Museum, an exhibit held January 31, 2009 to May 17, 2009 at the Paine Art Center and Gardens. Accessed August, 2015.

The West Observed: The Art of Howard Post is a 2018 exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art which says: "A third-generation Arizonan, he utilizes traditional Western themes in his paintings, drawings, and sculpture based on what he knows: ranching and the rodeo. His works focus on images of cowboys, corrals, horses, livestock, and wide pastures using his own signature style and an array of colors." Also see press release Accessed 5/18

The West Observed: The Art of Howard Post is a 2018 exhibit at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum which says: "A third-generation Arizonan, Post utilizes traditional Western themes in his paintings based on what he knows: ranching and the rodeo." Accessed 8/18

Western (genre) from Wikipedia. Accessed August, 2015.

The Western: An Epic in Art and Film is a 2017 exhibit at the Denver Art Museum which says: "The West is synonymous with the romantic, large-scale paintings of Frederic Remington and Albert Bierstadt. It also materializes in the works of contemporary artists like Ed Ruscha and Kent Monkman and the films of John Ford and Sergio Leone. By featuring these and other artists, authors, filmmakers, and historic figures together, The Western observes how the mythology of the West spread throughout the world and endures today." Accessed 6/17

Western Artists - sample of artists and works from askArt. Accessed August, 2015.

"Women of Western Art," by: Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, January 1, 1970, excerpt from An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West [1998 University of Texas Press, Austin ], from Southwest Art. Accessed August, 2015.

(above: William Henry Dethlef Koerner, The Posse, 1931, oil on canvas, 28 x 40.25 inches, Source: Liveauctioneers.com. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

(above: William H. D. Koerner, "The Tenth Law," Don't You Go Frettin', Sallie, I'll Tend To It, Illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, 1922, oil on canvas; 36 x 28 inches, Denver Art Museum, The Roath Collection, 2013.121)

(above: Argosy All-Story Weekly Magazine Cover (20 Dec 1924). Source: http://www.philsp.com/mags/argosy_3.html. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

Booth Western Art Museum presents Bonnie Adams interview with Seth Hopkins [7:20] Accessed June, 2015.

Stark / University Center Galleries website has a videos page which includes Artist Harold Osman, or H.O. "Cowboy" Kelly [8:02]. Accessed June, 2015.

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