Hunter Museum of American Art

Jun 7th - Aug 9th, 2009

Window on the West Views from the American Frontier

Window on the West: Views from the American Frontier--The Phelan Collection offers an intriguing glimpse of the American West. This collection of 64 objects includes both large paintings and small, gem-like works in a variety of styles.

The exhibition presents works by well-known artists– Frederic Remington, Samuel Colman, Alfred Jacob Miller, Karl Bodmer and John Frederick Kensett, for example. However, it also emphasizes the views of lesser-known artists recording what they observed in the newly-founded country.

Not surprisingly, landscapes form an important segment of Window on the West. Albert Bierstadt is represented by an 1859 oil sketch of the view of South Pass, Wyoming, done on his first trip west. As Eleanor Jones Harvey notes in the exhibition’s catalogue, this painting “depicts an almost park-like setting that conveys the artist’s appreciation for the subtle atmosphere of the arid landscape.” Samuel Colman’s glowing painting, Indian Rider, Wyoming, done in 1888 captures a dramatically sunlit scene.

Ransom Holdredge’s large and striking Sioux Camp in the Rocky Mountains offers a dramatic view of a green valley backed by towering snow-covered peaks. Holdredge traveled widely in the Pacific Northwest while living with Native Americans. He was best known for his paintings of scenes of everyday Native American life set in idealistic landscapes.

The exhibition also includes an intriguing selection of paintings of towns perched on the edge of the frontier. Walter Paris’ Glenwood Springs, Colorado is an 1891 watercolor that emphasizes a railroad bridge and an orderly, prosperous town. Joseph Lee’s painting of an Italianate House in Rustic Setting highlights the bizarre quality of a fancy house in the center of the nowhere.

Many paintings in the exhibition focus on the human figure. Alfred Jacob Miller was an important American artist who worked in the early years of the nineteenth century capturing the lives of both Native Americans and trappers. In The Lost Greenhorn, Harvey notes that the artist “presents a variation on the durable idiom of the clueless tourist in over his head.” On the other hand, famed illustrator and painter Frederic Remington’s black and white watercolor, I Settle My Own Scores, introduces a cool-headed sheriff who is totally in charge.

Window on the West also includes works that focus on Hispanics and Native Americans. Willard Schouler’s Ranch Hand, Wyoming of 1888 depicts a Hispanic cowboy wearing a broad brimmed hat and duster. Louis Akin’s small painting Hopi Maiden is a charming portrait. Lone Wolf is an interesting figure in that he was a reservation-born Blackfoot Indian and was one of the first Native American artists to pursue formal art training and to focus on his own heritage as his subject matter. Scouts on Watch is a dignified portrait of the traditional Native American way of life.

Window on the West was originally organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington D.C.

All of the works in Window on the West are from the collection of Arthur J. Phelan. Phelan’s visit to the West made in the early 1950s introduced the Maryland native to landscapes he had only read about. Later, while he was a military historian at March Air Force Base near Riverside, California, this feeling for the West was reinforced. In 1967 he made his first purchase of Western American art. This interest has continued to the present day. A graduate of Yale University where he studied American history, Phelan was the Chairman of Government Services Savings and Loan, Inc. He is retired chairman of an oil tanker company now headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

As Eleanor Harvey notes in the exhibition catalogue, “Rather than striving to build a collection of well-known names, he has acquired a trove of fascinating images.” This exhibition certainly is evidence of that fact.