Selections from the Denver Art Museum
This volume collects a selection of works of art produced in the western United States belonging to the collection of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art housed in the Denver Art Museum. This collection is one of the richest and most substantial in the world on this subject, thanks to its outstanding bronze sculptures, early modern works, and contributions from the artistic communities of Tao and Santa Fe. The central theme of the book is the period stretching from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.
More than two hundred pages of portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, and depictions of a still-intact wilderness make evident the diversity of the collection. The narrative proceeds chronologically, presenting early luminaries such as Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, and Charles M. Russell; Robert Henri and the artists of the TAO community; and prominent modernist painters, including Maynard Dixon, Marsden Hartley, and Raymond Jonson.
Numerous illustrations and expert interpretations chronicle the artistic, cultural, and identarian climate in the western United States during this period. A prologue by historian Dan Flores and an epilogue by art historian Erika Doss describe the vaster context in which to view this rich history of American art.
The present volume will accompany a series of exhibitions beginning in 2020, as well as the inauguration of the new Western American section at the Denver Art Museum in 2021.
Thomas Brent Smith is director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art. Since joining the Denver Art Museum in 2008, Smith has led the department to unprecedented growth. He has served as curator of groundbreaking exhibitions including The American West in Bronze (2013) with the Metropolitan Museum of Art; A Place in the Sun: The Southwest Paintings of Walter Ufer and E. Martin Hennings (2016); and The Western: An Epic in Art and Film (2017) with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, among many others.
Erika Dossis a professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her wide-ranging interests in American art and visual culture are reflected in the breadth of her publications: Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism (1991), which received the Charles C. Eldredge Prize; Twentieth-Century American Art (2002); The Emotional Life of Contemporary Public Memorials: Towards a Theory of Temporary Memorials (2008); and American Art of the 20th–21st Centuries (2017).
Dan Floresis a writer and Professor Emeritus of the History of the American West at the University of Montana. He has written for the New York Times, theLos Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and for eight years wrote a column on the art history of the West for Big Sky Journal. He is the author of ten books. Most recently, his American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plainsreceived the Stubbendieck Distinguished Book Prize (2017), and his Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History was a New York Times best-seller.
Jennifer R. Henneman is the Associate Curator at the Petrie Institute of Western American Art at the Denver Art Museum. Her curatorial and collections experience includes posts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Morris Graves Foundation, the Henry Art Gallery, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Molly Medakovich is a museum educator at the Denver Art Museum and an independent art historian. During her tenure at the museum, she has contributed to major western American art exhibitions and related programs including.