Art Museum with Focus

...returning to our October 2024 road trip, I'd left off with our visit to The Rockwell Museum in Corning New York.  As I'd mentioned previously, the Rockwell family, had contributed their extensive art collection and that was the foundation of today's artistic accumulation.  While the Rockwell family had focused on art related to the western United States, the collection is much broader than that.  However, you will note that I was drawn to the western theme as well as a few 'quirky' works of art.

At first glance, this may not strike the viewer as a work that is tied to the western USA or American Indians.  Constructed by Marie Watt, (1967 - ), it is titled "Blanket Stories: Western Door, Salt Sacks and Three Sisters".  To construct this artistic statement, a regional call for blankets went out and families across western New York State provided the necessary items.  

Watt works primarily with blankets as a material in her installations and collaborative works.  "These blankets serve as markers of collective memory and each one represents an individual story."  Marie has a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from Yale University.  She is a member of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation and her father's family were ranchers in Wyoming.  For more about the artist, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Watt.

This painting by Stephen Towns (1980 - ) is titled "Hair Lessons".  Towns uses labor as a theme, highlighting the role that African Americans have played in the economy.  His works explores their resilience, resistance and endurance.  To learn more, you can go to to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Towns.  Additional works by Towns are included later in this blog post.

This is a lithograph on paper that was created by Thomas Hart Benton. (1889 - 1975) Benton was an artist, muralist and printmaker.  Part of the Regionalist art movement, his works depicted everyday people in everyday settings.  This 10" by 14" limited edition lithograph with a certificate of authenticity can be purchased on-line for $4,400.00. 

Benton was born in Neosho Missouri.  His father was a 4-term US Congressman, and he named his son after his own great-uncle, Thomas Hart Benton, a former US Senator from Missouri.  Despite his father's wishes that his son go into politics, with his mother's support and financial backing, Benton studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and later he continued his education in Paris.  To learn more, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_(painter).

This painting by Olaf Wieghorst (1899 - 1988) is titled "Appaloosa".  Wieghorst is known for his portrayals of the American West.  He had an affinity for the cowboys, Native American Indians and the settlers who helped shape America's western landscape.  Olaf came to the US as a Danish teenager serving as a cabin boy on a steamship.  After living in New York for a bit, he joined the US Army, serving with the US 5th Cavalry along the US/Mexican border.  When he returned to New York he joined the Police Department's mounted division.  After some success with his artwork, he married a girl from Brooklyn and they moved to El Cajon California where they lived for the rest of their lives.  

Olaf was known as a portrait artist...but it was due to his portraits of horses.  Among others, he painted Gene Autry's Champion,, Tom Morgan's stallion and Roy Rogers' Trigger.  By the end of his long career, Olaf had sold thousands of paintings.  He became the highest paid living artist of his time.  He even appeared in 2 movies with John Wayne and he had paintings hung in the White House.

To learn more about Olaf Wieghorst just go to the website of the Olaf Wieghorst Museum.  It's located in El Cajon California.  His last home was also moved to the museum grounds.  Check it out at https://wieghorstmuseum.org/.

This painting is titled "The Gunslinger".  It is oil paint on board and it was completed by Frederic Sackrider Remington ca. 1889.  Remington is one of the premier American artist who depicted the American West in the late 1800s.  Remington was a painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer whose works focused on the cowboys, American Indians and the US Cavalry.

Early in life he struggled to find his way in life.  He wasn't a serious student but he evolved as an artist and began making a little money through his artistic efforts.  In 1866 Harper's Weekly sent Remington to Arizona to illustrate the US Army's campaign against the Apache Chief, Geronimo.  Another significant opportunity was his commission to create 83 illustrations for a book by Theodore Roosevelt.  Remington was prolific and he is highly regarded today.  Many of his paintings and sculptures have sold for hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars.

To learn much more about Frederic Remington, a good place to start is with Wikipedia where many other sources are provided.  Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Remington.

This painting is titled "Sun River War Party".  It was painted by Charles Marion Russell, aka C.M. Russell in 1903.  "Kid" Russell created more than 2,000 paintings plus bronze sculptures featuring cowboys, Native Americans and landscapes set in the western United States and Alberta Canada.  He was known as "the cowboy artist" as well as a storyteller and author.  Russell became an advocate for Native Americans in the west and was instrumental in the creation of the Rocky Boy Reservation for the landless Chippewa Nation covering 171 square miles in northern Montana.

Russell's career took off when he was working as a cowboy on a ranch.  The foreman got a letter from the owner asking how the cattle had weathered the winter.  As a response, the foreman sent him a small watercolor painting Russell had completed, showing a gaunt steer being watched by wolves under a gray winter sky.  The ranch owner showed the watercolor around and even displayed it in a storefront window in Helena Montana.  After that, commissions for new works began flowing in for Russell.

The C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls Montana features more than 2,000 of Russell's artworks, personal objects and artifacts.  Russell produced roughly 4,000 works of art including oil and watercolor paintings, drawings and sculptures in wax, clay, plaster and bronze.  To learn more about the museum, go to https://cmrussell.org/.  For more information about Russell, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Marion_Russell.

Not all artworks are paintings or sculptures.  Some items that show a true artistic flair, were actually utilitarian or even served as deadly weapons.  The item at the top of this showcase is a ca. 1820 Pipe Tomahawk.  It features a European manufactured steel head...pipe and hatchet...attached to a carved pipestem.  They were given to Native Americans as gifts of friendship or to mark treaty signings.

The second item is a Ball-Headed War Club.  Created from hickory in the mid-1800s, these clubs were used as deadly weapons for close-in fighting by Eastern Woodlands Native American cultures.  Even after the introduction of firearms to Native Americans, many still carried these clubs.  

The central object in this showcase is a Native American's beaded jacket from roughly 1880.  Contact with Europeans led to changes in trade for Native Americans as well as life in general.  Trade goods including iron tools, cloth/textiles, firearms and beads, served as change agents to previously observed ways of life.  This particular men's jacket was made using leather, cotton, wool, glass beads and brass buttons.  

Below the jacket a Native American fringed woven sash is displayed along with 2 beaded purses.  The cane at the left has a carved hand where one would grip it.  The cane on the right is an effigy cane or walking stick.  The carved finial at the top of these canes can represent a person, animal of object.  Effigy canes were considered to symbolize age and wisdom.

This is a Native American Cradleboard or "Ga-on-seh" (Mohawk), made ca. 1865.  Eastern American Woodland Cultures (Haudenosaunee) infants were swaddled in rigid cradleboards made of wood although other Native American tribes used other materials for the same purpose.  This beautifully decorated cradleboard shows off flowers, birds and ornamental vegetation...definitely a labor of love.

To learn much more about cradleboards, including their construction and use around the world, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradleboard.

This stunning sculpture is entitled "The Last Dance" and it was cast in bronze in 2012.  The artist is Michael Naranjo (b 1944) (Tewa Tribe/Santa Clara Pueblo).  Michael is blind, having lost his sight while serving with the US Military in Viet Nam.  He sculpts by touch and feel, creating forms and textures that are meant to be seen and felt.  Unlike almost all other museum displays, this sculpture is clearly signed "Please Touch".

Michael Naranjo's works are on permanent display at The Vatican and at the White House in addition to many museums.  Learn more about his work at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Naranjo.  To learn more about the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, just go to to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_Pueblo,_New_Mexico.

Given the ornate designs and the symmetry of the ceramic pottery shown above, there is no doubt about the skill of their creators.  All of them are Acoma Pueblo items.  The first one is a bowl from ca 1920, the second one is an olla, ca 1890, and the third is another bowl ca. 1925.  

FYI, an olla is a ceramic jar, often unglazed, that is used for cooking stews or soups, for the storage of water or dry foods and even for other purposes, (if unglazed), such as irrigation of crops.  Ollas have short wide necks and wider bellies.

Laurie and I would highly recommend a visit to the Acoma Pueblo.  It's been occupied for about 2,000 years and a small number of Native Americans still live there today.  There is no running water or electricity although a road has been carved up one side of the mesa to allow supplies, tribal members...and tourists...easy access.  It is a glimpse back in time... We do have a small glazed bowl that we purchased during our visit.  Learn more at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoma_Pueblo and at the Pueblo's website,  https://www.puebloofacoma.org/.

This painting by Ernest Leonard Blumenschein (1874 - 1960) is titled "Jury for Trial of a Sheepherder for Murder".  Completed in 1936, the painting "illustrates the tensions between traditional Hispanic customs and the newly introduced American Legal System in New Mexico".  Viewers are in the position to see what the accused would have seen.

Blumenschein was a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists.  He's especially noted for his paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico and the American Southwest.  The style of painting of the Taos artists decisively influenced the perceptions that the wider world had of the American Southwest, and specifically of the Pueblo and Navajo Indian peoples.

Art takes many forms.  This photo was taken in 1981 and it's medium is color inkjet on paper.  It's titled "Fisherman Brooks Cambell makes Liniment - Cedar Key".  FYI, Cedar Key is a very much off the beaten track island on the upper west coast of Florida...aka "The Lost Coast".

This color inkjet on paper photograph was also taken in 1981.  It shows "Sister Tommie Kaison, 108 years old, and Susanna Harteld, 110 years old, at family farm where they were born in the Florida panhandle, Two Egg, Jackson County.

This photograph used the same medium or process as the previous two... Also from 1981, this is author and playwright "Tennessee Williams, Key West".

The photographer who created these inkjet on paper photos is Nathan Benn (b 1950).  Benn worked as a contract photographer for National Geographic from 1972 through 1991, with 300 of his photos being published by the magazine.  The film used by Benn was Kodachrome.  Photo buffs know that this color film was much appreciated for capturing rich colors and complex lighting.  In 1991, he put down his camera, becoming co-founder and President of Picture Network International, the earliest Internet digital asset management and online stock photo licensing platform.

In 1991, Benn became the co-founder and President of Picture Network International (PNI), the earliest Internet digital asset management and online stock photo licensing platform.  In 1998, Eastman Kodak purchased PNI...and later it was sold again, this time to Getty Images and Bill Gates.

This work is quite new.  Created in 2024, it is titled "Motown in Motion".  It was constructed using both natural and synthetic fabric, polyester and cotton thread, crystal glass beads plus metal and resin buttons.

This work is by the same artist as was "Motown in Motion".  In this instance, the work is titled "The Match at Paradise Park".  It was painted using acrylics and metal leaf on a panel.  

The artist who created both works, as well as the ladies in the beauty shop shown previously is Stephen Towns. (b 1980) Born in Lincolnville South Carolina, Towns was the youngest of 11 children.  He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of South Carolina.  

Towns' artistic works are on display in many museums.  Among them are the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City Missouri, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and, the National Portrait Gallery.

We took many other photos at the Rockwell Museum in Corning New York.  We definitely enjoyed our visit!  To learn more about this museum, just go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_Museum, and the museum's website at https://rockwellmuseum.org/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave