Buffalo Bill Recommends... Cody, Wyoming Just two hours from B

The past is always present in Cody Country. This part of Wyoming represents the last of the true West.

Cody is what America was, a place where the cowboy culture thrives and where the new west begins.

The vistas are spectacular, the land is wild, the people are genuinely friendly and the opportunities for outdoor adventure, recreation, education and entertainment are as large and varied as the Wyoming skies.

Cody Country has a well developed hospitality industry with varied lodging opportunities, fine dining, world class museums and western activities. Cody is the only gateway community with two entrances to Yellowstone National Park and Cody is the hub for several loop tour drives that access five different Scenic Byways.

For exceptional Yellowstone Country travel information, including an on-line trip planner visit the Buffalo Bill’s Yellowstone Country website at www.yellowstonecountry.org.

Celebrate National Day of the American Cowboy with the BBHC July 24

A celebration of the spirit of the American West, the cowboy, ranching, and rodeo are all rolled into a “Family Fun Day” at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Saturday, July 24. It’s National Day of the American Cowboy, and special activities, presentations, music, and games in honor of the day take place 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. and are all included in the price of admission.

The Center partners with Cody Nite Rodeo, the Cody Enterprise, and the Dude Ranchers’ Association for the event. Activities start at 10 a.m. in the Historical Center’s Braun Garden, where participants can learn about branding, try on western clothing including everything from chaps to cowboy hats. Kids can even make their very own stick horse to race later in a stick horse barrel racing competition under the guidance of experts.

The cowboys and bull fighters from Cody Nite Rodeo conduct the “Little ’Pokes Rodeo” in the garden from noon – 3 p.m. Aspiring cowboys and cowgirls can learn rodeo skills by trying everything from the stick-horse barrel racing contests, “calf-in-a-bale” roping, sitting on a rodeo bronc saddle as well as riding saddles. Rodeo clowns will paint faces, and families should bring a camera for photo opportunities with Cody Nite Rodeo’s “Hollywood” the bull and a pair of calves from George Farms.

Short, spotlight presentations include Charlie Russell: The Cowboy Artist at 11 a.m. in the Center’s Whitney Gallery of Western Art and The Chuckwagon: the Heart and Soul of the Roundup in the Buffalo Bill Museum at 2 p.m. To round out the western atmosphere, chuckwagon cooking demonstrations—complete with biscuits and beans for the sampling—take place on the lawn out in front of the Center.

General information on National Day of the American Cowboy, initiated by American Cowboy magazine five years ago, can be found on the official Web site at cowboyday.com. The site offers media kits, fact sheets, and flyers for anyone who wishes to join in the commemoration. For more information on the Historical Center’s celebration, go to bbhc.org and navigate to “Explore” and then “Events.”

The Center, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is open daily from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. For general information, call 307-587-4771 or visit the new bbhc.org.

Go “Backstage with Buffalo Bill” Fridays at Cody Museum

It may be about a century too late to enjoy a live performance of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, but visitors can enjoy a behind-the-scenes look during Backstage with Buffalo Bill on Fridays, at 12:15 p.m., in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s Coe Auditorium. The talk is free with admission.

In his “Backstage” series, Buffalo Bill Museum Curator Dr. John C. Rumm discusses the Wild West’s back lot on one week and the women of the Wild West on alternate weeks. “We’re also gearing up for a celebration of Annie Oakley’s 150th birthday on August 13, so she’ll figure prominently in these presentations,” Rumm explained.

In its heyday during the 1890s and opening decade of the 20th century, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West ranked among the biggest, most diverse, and most logistically challenging entertainment enterprises of its kind, given its singular mix of personalities, props, and performers, both two-legged and four-footed. Yet whether crossing oceans or continents, the Wild West went on for three decades, thanks in no small measure to the unflagging energy of its impresario, William F. Cody.

In this presentation featuring colorful stories and vignettes, Rumm draws upon first-person accounts, diaries, historical photographs, and period newspaper articles to take audiences “backstage with Buffalo Bill,” offering fascinating insights into what made the Wild West work. The talks take place on Fridays through August 27, with the exceptions of July 16, and August 6 and 13.

The Center, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is now open daily, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. For general information, visit www.bbhc.org, or call 307-587-4771

Two Exhibits on Display in BBHC’s Whitney Gallery

Barely catching her breath since last summer’s grand re-opening of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Acting Curator Christine Brindza has added two new exhibits to the gallery.

“We know that some visitors miss having western artist Frederic Remington’s pieces all in one place,” Brindza explains. “We heard that message and created a unique exhibition of some of Remington’s studies, a means by which nearly every artist experiments with light, detail, layout, characters, and the like. What’s interesting is that some depict scenes in the Cody vicinity and will be familiar to those who know the area.”

Curator’s Choice: The Art of Frederic Remington features a selection of work from the last decade of Remington’s career including some finished works and many studies that “reveal Remington’s continuous artistic changes in style and technique,” Brindza says. “Toward the end of his life, he experimented with painting nature’s light in his work.” The Remington exhibit is on display in the Center’s mezzazine, the H. Peter and Jeannette Kriendler Gallery.

Brindza also orchestrated an exhibit titled Brush, Palette, and Custer’s Last Stand, featuring artists who depicted the Battle of Little Bighorn. “Variously called the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Battle of Greasy Grass, Custer’s Last Stand, Custer’s Last Fight, and several other names depending on cultural and historical perspective, the Battle of Little Bighorn remains shrouded in mystery,” Brindza observes. “As early as two weeks after the battle, artists attempted to re-create the mysteries of the battle in newspaper illustrations and major-scale works on canvas.

“Some of these early artists served as historians, whether intentionally or not, revealing details of the battle in their work. Others merely created a work of art based on imagination. Regardless, as the public saw these early images, their views of the battle were shaped by the artwork, and therefore, helped create myths and legends that resonate even today.”

On display near the Frederic Remington Studio in the Whitney Gallery, the exhibit includes works by William de la Montagne Cary (1840 – 1922), John Mulvany (1844 – 1906), Cassilly Adams (1843 – 1921), Edgar S. Paxson (1852 – 1919), Allan Mardon (b. 1931), Earl Biss (1947 – 1998), and Fritz Scholder (1937 – 2005).

“The Historical Center has 14 sketches Paxson used for his mammoth painting Custer’s Last Stand which he completed in 1899. We also have a photograph of Paxson working on this piece and a number of his painting tools like brushes, charcoal holders, and paint boxes,” Brindza adds. “The Paxson and Mardon works are situated across from each other with computer kiosks for more study, and Earl Biss’s General Custer in Blue and Green, 1996, is just around the corner.”

Online visitors can zoom in on the Paxson painting at http://tinyurl.com/BBHC-Paxson.

Committed to connecting people with the Spirit of the American West, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center weaves the varied threads of the western experience—history and myth, art and Native culture, firearms technology and the nature of Yellowstone—into the rich panorama that is the American West. The Center, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is now operating its summer schedule, open daily, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. For general information, visit www.bbhc.org, or call 307-587-4771.

Cody Museum Expands Exhibits, Events, Programs

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center has shifted into its summer season schedule - open daily 8 a.m. – 6 p.m.

The expanded hours coincide with a “Family Fun Day” that also celebrates the opening of the special exhibition Splendid Heritage: Perspectives on American Indian Art. Family Fun Day offers gallery presentations and demonstrations, and family-friendly admission rates, with children 17 and younger admitted free. Regular adult and senior rates apply.

The summer schedule remains in effect through September 15. The busy season brings other additional programming, events, and special exhibitions to the Center.

On tap for this year:

• Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier special exhibition, on view April 10 – August 8. In cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution.

• Splendid Heritage: Perspectives on American Indian Art special exhibition, on view May 1 – October 31.

• Quilters, a play produced and directed by Lynne Livingston Simpson, Tuesday – Saturday from July 17 – August 7.

• National Day of the American Cowboy celebration, July 24.

• Buffalo Bill Invitational Shootout, August 12 – 14.

For more information on summer events and exhibitions, hours and admission rates, membership benefits, and much more, visit the center’s Web site at www.bbhc.org.

Committed to connecting people with the Spirit of the American West, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center weaves the varied threads of the western experience —history and myth, art and Native culture, firearms technology and natural history — into the rich panorama that is the American West. The Center is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. It is open 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. May 1. For general information, call 307-587-4771 or visit www.bbhc.org.

Smithsonian Partnership Brings Wild West Warriors

According to Michelle Anne Delaney, Curator of the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier embarked on a deeply personal project in 1898.

“Her new undertaking was inspired by viewing the grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West troupe en route to New York City’s Madison Square Garden,” Delaney explained. “Within a matter of weeks, Käsebier began a unique and special project photographing the Sioux Indians traveling with the show, formally and informally, in her 5th Avenue studio.”

Delaney brings Käsebier’s work to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in an exhibition titled: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, on view in the John Bunker Sands Photography Gallery through August 8. Delaney describes the collection as “original platinum and gum-bichromate photographs printed from original glass negatives, pictograph drawings made by the Sioux Indians while at Käsebier’s studio, historic camera and studio equipment, and select items representing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from the Smithsonian and Historical Center collections.

“These prints rank among the most compelling of her celebrated body of work,” Delaney continues. “Eventually, she became the leading portraitist of her time and an extraordinary art photographer. Since 1969, more than 100 of these photographs have been preserved in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.”

Delaney is a graduate of Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, and of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Her research specialties include history of photography, including the technology and art of nineteenth and twentieth-century still and motion pictures; photojournalism; and Washington, D.C. photography. As a Cody Institute for Western American Studies Research Fellow last summer, Delaney expanded her research on the Indians in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West at the Historical Center’s McCracken Research Library.

Stay abreast with Historical Center activities at www.bbhc.org.

The Story of the Lewis and Clark Journey in 100 Paintings

Charles Fritz, An Artist with the Corps of Discovery at BBHC

Charles Fritz has always loved history.

One look at this summer’s exhibition of his Lewis and Clark paintings at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and viewers will say, “We can tell.”

This popular western artist brings his exhibition An Artist with the Corps of Discovery: One Hundred Paintings Illustrating the Journals of Lewis and Clark to the historical center for a three-month stay. It opens to the public on June 6, 2009, and will remain on view through August 30.

Ten years ago, Fritz received a commission to paint a scene from the Journals of Lewis and Clark. In the process, he discovered the Corps of Discovery had no artist traveling with them who could document the sites and experiences of the journey. An idea began to gel that would find Fritz traveling the entire route of the expedition twice, his palette in one hand, the Lewis and Clark journal entries in the other.

In the end, he created scores of paintings, sketches, and studies depicting the Lewis and Clark adventure, a hundred of which will be included in the One Hundred Paintings exhibition.

Born in 1955, Fritz grew up in Mason City, Iowa, and studied history and education at Iowa State University in Ames. Soon his interest in art became his focus, and he decided to forego a teaching career. He moved to Montana in 1980 and became enamored of the history of the Great Plains and the West. Today, he lives in Billings, Montana, with his wife and two sons and paints historical subjects in “vast, luminous landscapes.”

Fritz’s work is familiar to western art aficionados as it’s included in numerous museum exhibitions and collections across the country, including the Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale each fall in Cody. He’s listed in Who’s Who in the American West and Who’s Who in America, and his work has been featured in many magazines and journals.

During the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration 2003 – 2006, the collection, which then numbered 70 paintings, traveled to seven museums across the country. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center is pleased to be the first venue to exhibit the finished collection.

A specific schedule will be finalized soon. Read more about the exhibition at bbhc.org/exhibitions/charlesFritz.cfm.

Start any journey into the American West at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, currently operating its winter schedule, open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday; closed Monday through Wednesday. Beginning April 1, the center will open 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. daily. Devoted to western cultural and natural history, the center is comprised of the Buffalo Bill Museum, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Plains Indian Museum, Cody Firearms Museum, Draper Museum of Natural History, and McCracken Research Library. For general information, visit www.bbhc.org or call 307.587.4771.