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The Art of John Mix Stanley Non-profit. Org. POSTAGE PAID Buffalo Bill Center of the West 720 SheridanSheridan Avenue Avenue Cody, Wyoming 82414 Cody,Return WyomingService Requested 82414 centerofthewest.org POINTSWESTspring 2015 Membership Cards Enclosed The art of John Mix Stanley | Wyoming Grasslands photos by Michael Berman and William Sutton | Buffalo Bill on a bullfrog? | Summer with golden eagles About the cover: to the point BY BRUCE ELDREDGE | Executive Director Check out Wyoming Grasslands: Photos by Michael Berman and William Sutton starting on page 18. Two trees in Johnson County, Wyoming, March 6, 2014. L1023968. Michael Berman photo. ©2015 Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Points West is published for members and friends of the Center of the West. Written permission is required to copy, reprint, or distribute Points West materials in any medium or format. All photographs in Points West are Center of the West photos unless otherwise noted. Direct all questions about image rights and “Tulsa. Tacoma. Longmont. Omaha. Palm Springs. Salt reproduction to [email protected]. Bibliographies, works cited, and footnotes, etc. Lake City. Kansas City. New York City. Oklahoma City. are purposely omitted to conserve space. However, Richmond. Great Falls. Cody…and more.” such information is available by contacting the editor. Address correspondence to Editor, – bruce eldredge Points West, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, 720 Sheridan Avenue, Cody, Wyoming 82414, or es, our New Year at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West finds our [email protected]. collections traveling far and wide—starting right here in Cody this spring ■ with two phenomenal exhibitions. Managing Editor | Marguerite House YIn the first, the somewhat obscure nineteenth-century artist John Mix ■ Assistant Editor | Nancy McClure Stanley won’t remain obscure any longer when we open Painted Journeys: ■ Designer | Desirée Pettet The Art of John Mix Stanley. The summer exhibition highlights the work of ■ Contributing Staff Photographers | this adventurer-artist, the bulk of which was destroyed in three separate fires. Dr. Charles R. Preston, Nate Horton Another Stanley exhibition with a 42-scene moving panorama just vanished! ■ Now, we’ve gathered some sixty of his known works in an extraordinary Credits and Permissions | Ann Marie exhibition that opens June 6, 2015. Then, Painted Journeys makes its way to the Donoghue Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, followed by the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, Washington. Read more on pages 4 – 9. Points West is published three times a year for Opening June 4 in the John Bunker Sands Photography Gallery is Wyoming patrons and friends of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. For more information, contact the editor at Grasslands: Photographs by Michael Berman and William Sutton, a partnership the address above. between the Center and the Wyoming Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. In The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is a private, 2012, Berman and Sutton began to photograph Wyoming’s grasslands to call non-profit, educational institution dedicated attention to the dangers facing this landscape. View a sample of these images to preserving and interpreting the natural and on pages 18 – 23. cultural history of the American West. Founded Our popular Go West! Art of the American Frontier from the Buffalo Bill Center in 1917, its collections include: Buffalo Bill and of the West, which had a most successful run at the High Museum of Art in the West he lived and loved, historic photographs and documents, firearms, natural science of the Atlanta, Georgia, in 2012 – 2013, travels to the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Greater Yellowstone region, Plains Indians, and Nebraska, for a November 7, 2015, opening. After that, it’s on to the Palm masterworks of western art. Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs, California, for a November 2016 opening. The mission of Points West is to deliver an Finally, planning is underway for the eagerly-awaited exhibition Coming engaging, educational magazine primarily to home! Legacies of the Paul Dyck Plains Indian Collection. Since its arrival in 2007, our members and friends. Points West will use a our staff has cataloged, cleaned, and conserved hundreds of objects in the multi-disciplinary strategy to connect the reader to the nature and culture of the American West, collection—not to mention undertaken countless hours of research. The Dyck and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in particular, exhibition is tentatively scheduled to open at the Arizona Historical Society, through exceptional images and appealing, reader- Tucson, in November 2016, and then debut here at the Center after that. friendly stories. As 2015 begins, and wonderful exhibitions abound, there’s no better time to visit the collections of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West—here in Cody, or at a location near you! ■ 2 ­­– Buffalo Bill Center of the West | POINTS WEST | Spring 2015 4 contents Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley Revealing an unknown artist From the Gilcrease Museum to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and from the Smithsonian American Art Museum to Yale University, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West has assembled some sixty works from thirty-six lenders for the upcoming exhibition, Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley. Rare works from Stanley make their way to the Center from Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Michigan, and Washington State—to name a few—for the exhibition’s June 6, 2015, opening. Beginning on page four, discover why this extraordinary artist has remained virtually unknown for more than a century. John Mix Stanley (1814 – 1872). Nez Perces, ca. 1857 –1860. Tinted lithograph on paper. Gift of Gloria S. Duffy and Family. 8.96 highlights departments 24 Yellowstone Corner | Golden eagle, icon of the American West 30 Treasures from our West | A look at our collections 34 Bits and bytes | News, activities, events, and calendar 11 18 37 A thousand words | A story told through A leap, but not a stretch | The Wyoming Grasslands | “They a single photo lithograph, La Rana nel Wild West… demand strength and persistence and 38 Between the bookends | Spillover: Animal does indeed depict Buffalo Bill riding, loyalty. They turn away the insincere.” Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, of all things, a bucking bullfrog… by David Quammen VISIT US ONLINE | Stay in touch with all that’s happening at the Center of the Points West is the magazine of the Buffalo West. Keep an eye on our website; follow us in social media; and sign up today at Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming. centerofthewest.org/e-news-signup to receive our e-newsletter Western Wire. Buffalo Bill Center of the West | POINTS WEST | Spring 2015 – 3 Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley Revealing an unknown artist BY MINDY N. BESAW the legacy of the American West and in shaping our American identity. Yet, even for ohn Mix Stanley (1814 - 1872) was enthusiasts of American art and the West, a major figure in nineteenth-century Stanley is relatively unknown. The upcoming American Art, yet his life and art remain exhibition, Painted Journeys: The Art of John Junexplored. He was an ardent adventurer Mix Stanley, reveals this little-known artist who traveled to the West more than any and highlights how Stanley is relevant and other artist of his time. He was a painter of important today. American Indians and was sensitive to their changing circumstances during a tumultuous Indian Gallery time in our country’s history. Self-Portrait, c. 1860. Oil on Stanley shared the western art limelight canvas. Gilcrease Museum, Throughout his travels and in his Tulsa, Oklahoma. (0126.1139) depictions of American Indians and western during the mid-nineteenth century with L.394.2015.6 scenes, Stanley remained dedicated to George Catlin (1796 -1872), Alfred Jacob fine art, not just documentation. Stanley’s Miller (1810 - 1874), and William T. Ranney imagery played an important role in creating (1813 -1857)—all of whom have enjoyed 4 ­­– Buffalo Bill Center of the West | POINTS WEST | Spring 2015 George Catlin (1796 – 1872). The Last Race, Mandan (Eeh-K’na-K’nah-Pic), ca. 1855 – 1870. Oil on paperboard. Gift of Paul Melon. Center of the West 28.86 important exhibitions and scholarship in collection was tragically destroyed in an 1865 like savages. Stanley generally avoided these recent years. Like Catlin, who first journeyed fire at the Smithsonian, where it had been on negative stereotypes and regarded American up the Missouri River in the 1830s to paint exhibit. Indians as worthy subjects for fine art. the Plains Indians and their way of life, Despite this great loss, we can still learn Stanley’s scenes of Indian life often Stanley explored the West in search of much about Stanley’s unique approach feature family groups and quiet moments. American Indian and frontier themes on an to American Indian subjects from his In Group of Piegan Indians, men dressed in expansive scale. existing portraits and paintings of Indian their finest apparel rest on an outcropping From his travels in the 1840s and 1850s, life. During his travels, Stanley witnessed to smoke. Stanley presents the act of leisure Stanley assembled a vast collection of the pressures on American Indian peoples smoking as a special activity that afforded Indian portraits and scenes of daily life, to adapt or perish in the wake of the 1830 men a universal bond, relatable to Stanley’s which became the heart of his famous Indian Removal Act. The legislation forced audiences across cultural boundaries. These Indian Gallery of more than one-hundred- the migration of southeastern tribes to west intimate and approachable scenes celebrate fifty paintings. Stanley lobbied the United of the Mississippi, and thereby, increased renewal and regeneration. Yet at the same States government to purchase his Indian incursions from trappers and settlers into time, Stanley also lamented the doomed Gallery on several occasions, but each time the West.
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