Big Country, Big Art
"In this country, nothing can be small or elaborate..."
By: TW Editors 09/25/2009
The Whitney Gallery opened in 1959, and to this day, studio collections are its beating heart. From the 1957 Remington donation followed the studio collections of W.H.D. Koerner in 1978, Joseph Henry Sharp in 1986 and Alexander Phimister Proctor in 2006. The museum reopened in this 50th anniversary year with its newest studio collection of sculptor Proctor ready for visitors. Ironically, Proctor had been nominated by Teddy Roosevelt to sculpt Buffalo Bill after Cody’s death in 1917, but that plan for a statue in Colorado never materialized. Proctor went on to sculpt On the War Trail and Rough Rider (of Roosevelt). Included in the Proctor collection at the Whitney this year is the plaster used in the modeling of the Roosevelt bronze.
Phippen Museum
The Cowboy Artists of America never forget their own. When the organization’s first president George Phippen died at age 50 in 1966, a group of artists banded together to form a museum in his name. George hadn’t even lived long enough to attend the first CAA exhibition in Oklahoma City in 1966 (held in the Phoenix area since 1973). The tragedy of his death was that his art most likely killed him. George died of cancer, and his son Lynn suspected that toxic fumes from polysulfides, which George had used to coat the molds for bronze castings, might have caused the cancer. Lynn’s brother Ernie also died from it. After her husband George’s death, Louise wanted to celebrate the humor and storytelling showcased in Western art, just like that created by George. His Caught Napping is a great example, showing a cowboy napping on his hunting trip, while his alert horse watches deer pass by. Even John Wayne appreciated Phippen’s humor and attention to history; the actor hired him to illustrate the movie book for 1960’s The Alamo. And George even illustrated the pages of our magazine True West.
In 1974, the artists hosted the first annual Memorial Day art show in Prescott, Arizona, to raise funds for the museum. In the early 1980s, the trust that represented Harold James and Family, owners of the Deep Well Ranch, donated a five-acre plot of land near the legendary Granite Dells for the museum, which opened in 1984.
In its 25th anniversary year, the Phippen Museum dedicated a new entrance on Highway 89 with Frederic Remington’s 1895 bronze statue The Bronco Buster. This entrance is the first phase in expanding the museum. The expansion will house the Phippen family’s private collection of George Phippen’s art and the Abe Hays art collection, which will feature illustrative art, such as those done by Will James, among other Western art. The Phippen has already raised $2.4 million, with less than a million more dollars needed to double the size of the museum.
Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art
Some may wonder how Indianapolis became home to one of the premiere Western art institutions in the nation, but they would only have to look to its founder to understand. Through marriage, Thomas Eiteljorg would leave behind his news reporting and advertising sales career to become president of the coal brokerage firm Morgan Mines. In the 1950s, he leased coal deposits from Colorado and began making trips west to investigate other sites. An avid collector of art from around the world, he only had a “few Westerns” by 1961—half a dozen Nicolai Fechins and, of course, Olaf Wieghorst’s Cutting Horse.
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