The Western Museum - Long Day

 Wednesday, 21 April 2021 for Saturday, 17 April 2021

(Am I that far behind?)


Many of you will recognize this sculpture entitled "The End of the Trail."  It is a sculpture by James Earle Fraser located in Waupun, Wisconsin. It depicts a weary Native American man hanging limp as his weary horse comes to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The statue is a commentary on the damage Euro-American settlement inflicted upon Native Americans. The main figure embodies the suffering and exhaustion of people driven from their native lands. (Description from Wikipedia.) There is a bit of a convoluted story, but this is the original plaster casting, and it ended up in the  National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is the first thing one sees upon entering the museum. I was there about 25 years ago, but Randy had never seen the museum -- she had never been to OKC. As I said in an earlier Facebook post, we have been to a lot of museums, some of them overseas, but this is one of my favorites.

Among the items in the museum are sculptures and paintings by Frederick Remington and Charles ("Charlie") Russell. The displays throughout the museum are big, bold, impressive. Without much comment, I will share some pictures.

"Trooper of the Plains" - Remington


"Coming Through the Rye" - Remington


"The Last Drop" - Charles Schreyvogel
(he was new to me, very impressive)


"The Buffalo Signal" - Remington

In one area, there was discussion of Remington preparing the models for bronze casting, and depending on the craftsmen to work their magic. The craftsmen often complained that Remington didn't give them enough of a base to support the weight of the bronze. For example, in the sculpture "Coming Through the Rye", while there are four horses, therefore 16 legs of the horses, only six of those legs are on the base of the sculpture, the rest are :in the air." Apparently that was quite hard to cast.


"Smoke Talk" - Russell


"The Signal Blaze" - Russell

Another outstanding and huge sculpture is the Canyon Princess:



While we both enjoyed the sculptures and paintings, there were many other forms of art as well as many items from the western US and its culture.


There were displays of western culture as portrayed in literature, radio, television and the movies, as well as historical representations of the military in the west, native culture, life of the early settlers, the politics of the area, wagon trains, cattle ranching and pretty much any aspect of western life you might imagine. There is also the Rodeo Hall of Fame in the same museum, though honestly, neither of us spent much time in that one.

There was so much to see, and we didn't seem to take enough pictures to represent it all. But we opened the museum up at 10, took a lunch break about 2, and left about 4:40P and the museum closed at 5, so we had a full day.

There was a representation of a western town, with all the associated people, including barber, doctor, storekeeper, and so on. Here are a couple things that caught our eye:


This was an eye test at the time -- to find out the extent of a person's colorblindness!


We include this for our Grandson Blake.


The museum wasn't really serving adult beverages, but this was our selfie for the day in the old-time saloon.

I will leave you with some of the most impressive artwork, which was in an auditorium, and was auditorium-sized. (Randy took these pictures, which were outstanding, considering how huge the art was.







(I hope you can zoom in on the plaque describing the triptychs, or the art itself.)
















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