Jackson Hole Art Blog

From the Buffalo Bill Historical Center comes this release:

According to Michelle Anne Delaney, Curator of the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier embarked on a deeply personal project in 1898.

“Her new undertaking was inspired by viewing the grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West troupe en route to New York City’s Madison Square Garden,” Delaney explains. “Within a matter of weeks, Käsebier began a unique and special project photographing the Sioux Indians traveling with the show, formally and informally, in her 5th Avenue studio.”

Delaney brings Käsebier’s work to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in an exhibition titled: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, on view in the John Bunker Sands Photography Gallery April 10 – August 8. On Friday, April 9, 5 – 7 p.m., a Patrons Preview for Historical Center members precedes the public opening April 10.

Delaney describes the collection as “original platinum and gum-bichromate photographs printed from original glass negatives, pictograph drawings made by the Sioux Indians while at Käsebier’s studio, historic camera and studio equipment, and select items representing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from the Smithsonian and Historical Center collections.

“These prints rank among the most compelling of her celebrated body of work,” Delaney continues. “Eventually, she became the leading portraitist of her time and an extraordinary art photographer. Since 1969, more than one hundred of these photographs have been preserved in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.”

http://www.bbhc.org

The man responsible for conceiving the initial idea for the Papers of William F. Cody documentary editing project, “one of the most significant scholarly works in the history of the Center,” is leaving the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC) to take a new post as Director of the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dr. Kurt Graham has, in four years of phenomenal expansion at the BBHC, made possible the digitizing of “tens of thousands of historical photographs, documents, correspondence, and maps…”  Graham spearheaded the launching of the digital project–now available on line–throughout the U.S. and Europe.  Graham’s tenure also brought new staff and equipment, updated space, and a remarkable $1.5 million in grant monies to the BBHC.    The Papers of William F. Cody launched with editors throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Graham, the Housel Director of the McCracken Research Library and Co-director of the Cody Institute for Western American Studies at BBHC, is the creative force that made it all happen.  So says Maryanne Andrus, Director of Education and Co-director for Western American Studies.

According to Andrus, as managing editor, Graham “…assembled a team of editors in the United States and Europe who are producing edited print volumes and a digital archive of Cody-related material. This papers project will literally take Bill Cody and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West to the world once again and will be a feather in the cap of the Historical Center for many years to come.”  The project, she says, is among the most significant scholarly works in the BBHC’s history.

Graham, who was raised in Wyoming’s Big Horn country, says he’s not leaving because of a sense of running his course at the BBHC; rather, an opportunity to direct the Salt Lake institution “fell out of the sky.”  He says he and his family will miss Cody and the experience of being such an integral part of the BBHC’s evolution as a potent cultural presence.

“Kurt’s myriad contributions to the Center in leadership and scholarship have been stunning,” Andrus continues. “His vision for extending the reach of the Center beyond the walls of the museum will be sorely missed. Under his direction, the McCracken has taken on a completely different look and feel. The McCracken is a completely different institution than it was before.”

For more information, phone the BBHC at 307.578.4014.   To see the BBHC’s digital collections, click here.

The Wyoming State Parks & Cultural Resources website has posted information on Cultural Trust Fund (WCTF) applications, currently available to download.

The deadline for completed applications is May 1, 2010; a postmark deadline.  Hand-delivery date deadline is April 30.   Draft proposals may be submitted no later than April 16.  Projects applying for funds must be “projects/events/activities that commence by July 1, 2010.”   Recipients must also complete a final report, due 60 days after project completion.

I clicked through the site to find out what kinds of projects are currently being funded with grant monies.  It’s a wonderful grouping:

“Learn by Using Museums,” a program developed by UW Art Museum Director and Chief Curator Susan Moldenhauer, covers the importance of museum-supported education.  Specifically, the Museum has created a Master Teacher program that helps students understand their place in history–and history itself—through art projects.  Arts curriculum are enhanced through teachers and venues wanting to collaborate.  Art is used to enrich all curriculum: math, history, language…any topic that does NOT include art can be enriched through art.

You can watch a short video on the project here.

Another project, the Paul Smith Children’s Village at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens has opened. It includes a Secret Garden Wall and Puppet Theater. Laramie County School District #1 will benefit from future programs as well.

The Washakie Museum & Cultural Center, located in Worland, Wyoming, is not yet completed, but its schematics are complete and the facility should be opening very soon.   WCTF grants are helping fund interior museum equipment.   The museum’s director, Cheryl Reichelt, is happy to schedule tours of the almost-finished building.

To learn more about the Wyoming State Parks and Cultural grants program, contact Renee Bovee by phoning 307.777.6312.  Good luck!

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s Whitney Gallery of Western Art is set to re-open June 21.   It has been closed for remodeling since October 2008.

Curator Mindy Besaw has been neck deep in the project.

“It’s been “all Whitney, all the time” says Besaw.  “I hope to provide visitors with a rich new perspective on the role of art in understanding the American West.”  Besaw feels the gallery’s 50th anniversary catch phrase, “Seeing the West in a whole new way,” captures its essence.  She notes that the “… reinterpreted gallery goes beyond a traditional chronological display of artwork to create a mixture of historic and contemporary art, grouped together based on such themes as, “Horses in the West,” “Wonders of Wildlife,” “Heroes and Legends,” and “Inspirational Landscapes.” Put another way, it “celebrates the past and envisions the future.” ”

The gallery’s history began when the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association commissioned a New York artist, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, to create a monument to Cody. She donated Buffalo Bill – The Scout, which was dedicated on July 4, 1924, and forty acres of adjacent land.

Besaw tells us that,”For 30 years, the Scout remained a solitary horse-and-rider at the outskirts of town. In 1954, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, the sculptor’s son, donated funds in his mother’s honor to create a western art gallery in Cody, Wyoming. Then, in 1957, the Honorable Robert Coe, acting for the Coe Foundation, purchased the Frederic Remington studio collection of paintings, sketches, and artifacts and gave it to the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association for a new art museum.”

And, as they say, the rest is history.  For information, contact  Mindy Besaw at mindyb@bbhc.org , or phone 307.578.4053

Photographer Robert Turner’s large format, color landscape photography show “Rare Places in a Rare Light” is on display at the Buffalo Bill Cody Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.   It remains on display in the BBHC’s John Bunker Sand Photography Gallery through July 31.

Forty-three images make up the show, which has traveled to notable natural history museums at Harvard University and the Mumm Napa Fine Art Photography Gallery. The exhibit showcases Turner’s landscape shots of vistas in Utah, California, Maine and New Mexico…and of Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest and Yellowstone National Park.

“There are times when my camera frames a scene that sweeps 50 miles to the horizon without a trace of human life. Those times are rare and thrilling,” says Robert “Bob” Turner. “More often, I work to frame out the footprint of man on the landscape.”

I’m not familiar with any mantras saying human beings should be included in wildlife photography in order to show scale, even though Turner says one exists.  If it does, he’s not a disciple of that photography sect.

” As a species, we have the capacity to respond to the essence of wildness in a place, even if that place is only an island in the larger sea of human commotion,” says Turner.  “When [a photograph] works, it is often because I’ve managed to capture a fleeting moment of light, color, motion, or stillness that gives the image a sense of heightened reality. I’m left feeling that I have witnessed something that has transcended the realm of ordinary experience.”

The historical center’s education department is working with Turner for lecture and workshop opportunities in late July. Details will be forthcoming later this spring. Monitor www.bbhc.org for more information.

An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the BBHC is open 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. daily.  For general information, visit www.bbhc.org or call 307.587.4771.