See the Work
Where to experience Art of the American West's works in person, and resources to learn more
Lander's Peak, 1863
Permanent Collections
Institutions holding Art of the American West's original works, plus the public-domain archive these images are drawn from.
The works in this archive come from the National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art. All are in the public domain.
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C.
Holds 351 paintings from Catlin's Cartoon Collection (Paul Mellon gift, 1965), Bierstadt's The Last of the Buffalo, Moran's Yellowstone watercolors and Green River Cliffs, and Bodmer prints; the main CC0 source for this archive.
Learn MoreThe Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York City
Holds The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, Bierstadt's Yosemite paintings and sketchbooks, Remington's bronzes and paintings, Schreyvogel's My Bunkie and Catlin's early portrait miniatures; a CC0 source for this archive.
Learn MoreCleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, Ohio
Holds Bierstadt's Mount Starr King, Yosemite, Remington's Trooper of the Plains and Moran drawings; a CC0 source for this archive.
Learn MoreSmithsonian American Art Museum
Washington, D.C.
Holds the nearly complete surviving set of Catlin's original 1830s Indian Gallery, given to the Smithsonian in 1879.
Learn MoreJoslyn Art Museum
Omaha, Nebraska
Holds the largest of the known collections of Karl Bodmer's watercolors, drawings and prints from the Maximilian expedition.
Learn MoreGilcrease Museum
Tulsa, Oklahoma
A major museum of art of the American West, with works by Charles Schreyvogel and Charles M. Russell.
Learn MoreAmon Carter Museum of American Art
Fort Worth, Texas
A major collection of Western American art, including works by Charles M. Russell.
Learn MoreMajor Exhibitions
Notable retrospectives and exhibitions of Art of the American West's work.
Catlin's Indian Gallery (U.S. tour)
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and New York
Catlin's touring display of his paintings and collected objects, hung salon-style and accompanied by his lectures, in an unsuccessful bid to interest the federal government.
Catlin's Indian Gallery (European tour)
London, Brussels and Paris
The gallery's European tour, at which Catlin often presented Native performers - an early form of the Wild West show.
Salon of 1846
Paris
Two Catlin portraits were shown and defended by Charles Baudelaire.
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak
Tenth Street Studio Building, New York
Bierstadt's first single-picture exhibition, promoted with a pamphlet and engravings; nearly a thousand invited guests attended.
Metropolitan Fair
New York (U.S. Sanitary Commission)
Lander's Peak hung opposite Frederic Church's Heart of the Andes at the Union fundraising fair.
Exposition Universelle
Paris
Lander's Peak won a prize.
The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920
National Museum of American Art, Washington
A landmark and much-debated reassessment of Western images as narratives of conquest and expansion.
Thomas Moran
National Gallery of Art, Washington
A major retrospective of Moran's paintings, watercolors and prints.
George Catlin and His Indian Gallery
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Washington
More than 400 objects, including the nearly complete surviving original Indian Gallery, with a section recreating Catlin's European display.
Books & Films About Art of the American West
Essential resources for understanding Art of the American West's life and work.
Films & Other Resources
Catlin's two-volume account of his 1830s travels, illustrated with about 300 engravings after his paintings.
Twenty-five plates after Catlin's paintings of hunting scenes and amusements; the archive's Ball Players lithograph is dated to the same year.
Catlin's account of his later travels, including South America, the source of many Cartoon Collection subjects.
English edition (London, 1843-44) of Maximilian's Reise in das innere Nord-America, with 81 aquatints after Karl Bodmer.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum's catalogue of the original Indian Gallery, accompanying its 2002 exhibition.
A catalogue and critical study of Catlin's original gallery published by the Smithsonian Institution Press.
The influential and controversial National Museum of American Art catalogue that read Western images as expressions of expansionist ideology.
The Joslyn Art Museum's catalogue of its Bodmer watercolors, drawings and prints from the Maximilian expedition.
Brooklyn Museum catalogue examining Bierstadt's paintings alongside his skill at promotion and the market for Western scenery.
Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art's retrospective, covering Moran's Yellowstone work and his career as painter and printmaker.
Edited primary sources from the survey that took Moran and William Henry Jackson to Yellowstone.
Amon Carter Museum catalogue of Miller's western sketches and paintings from his 1837 journey.
Online Resources
Explore the Archive
Browse 525 Art of the American West works from the National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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