Odds

Call it a New Year’s resolution if you will, but I’m determined to feature one new thing I discover — either through meat space wandering or on the Web — every day of 2010. Today it’s a combination of the two.

From the time I was a boy sitting rapt-faced before Roy Rogers shorts at the movie theater, I’ve been fascinated by tales of the American West. Though the myths and legends might have changed as I got older, one constant remained. Paintings and statues of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell accurately documented the turn-of-the-century world of real cowboys and Indians. So when I moved from Tennessee to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, one of the first places I visited was the Amon Carter Museum. As the organization’s Web site says, “nowhere else can a visitor see and compare so many masterpieces by these two artists.” From sketches to personal correspondence to detailed paintings to bronzes, the Carter’s Remington and Russell collection is a must-see for aficianado’s of Zane Grey’s Old West.

Shutterbugs will also find a treasure trove at the Carter. The museum houses over 30,000 photographic prints, making it “one of the country’s major repositories of American photography.” On a recent visit, I found work by Ansel Adams and the great Alfred Stiegliz. Those prints alone were well worth the price of admission (free, by the way).

Visitors to Dallas/Ft. Worth should include the Amon Carter in their itinerary. They won’t be disappointed.

Image: “The Bronco Buster” by Frederic S. Remington. Click photo to enlarge.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.