Museum entrance, The Autry Center DSCN0096

Tower at the Autry National Center DSCN0098

Cascade at Autry Center, Griffith Park DSCN0128

The Autry Museum of the American West is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, dedicated to exploring an inclusive history of the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. Founded in 1988, the museum presents a wide range of exhibitions and public programs, including lectures, film, theater, festivals, family events, and music, and performs scholarship, research, and educational outreach. It has two sites and attracts about 150,000 visitors annually. In 2013, it extensively redesigned and renovated the Irene Helen Jones Parks Gallery of Art and the Gamble Firearms Gallery in its main building. In its related opening exhibit for the Parks Gallery, ''Art of the West,'' the new organization enabled material to be presented in relation to themes rather than chronology, and paintings were shown next to crafts, photography, video and other elements in new relationships.

Locations

The Autry Museum of the American West has two sites, about apart: *

Griffith Park Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park includes popular attractions such as the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the Ameri ...

4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, California, 90027 *Mt. Washington, 234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles, California, 90065 (

Southwest Museum of the American Indian The Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, above the north-western bank of the Arroyo Seco (Los Angeles County) canyon and stream. The muse ...

building and

ethnobotanical Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for m ...

garden, open on Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.)

Elements

The Autry was established in 1988 by actor and businessman

Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...

as "Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum" to explore and share the comprehensive story of the American West and its multiple cultures and interpret its significance. Its Griffith Park collection includes 21,000 paintings, sculptures, costumes, textiles, firearms, tools, toys, musical instruments, and other objects. The museum presents contemporary and historical exhibitions, year-round programs for children, intellectual forums, and the ''Native Voices at the Autry'' performing arts series. Native Voices at the Autry Museum of the American West has been the only equity theater that has only focused on producing new works by Native American, Alaska Native, and First Nation playwrights since 1995. Randy Reinholz (member of Oklahoma's Choctaw nation) and his wife Jean Bruce Scott have run this theater program that runs out of the museum for 20 years. Native Voices has since been able to produce over 34 full productions, gone on over 20 tours, with 23 new play festivals and 13 Native playwrights. Native Voices is a crucial part of the Autry's mission to promote art history and cultures of the American West. The museum is located in Griffith Park across from the

Los Angeles Zoo The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens is a zoo founded in 1966 and located in Los Angeles, California. The city of Los Angeles owns the entire zoo, its land and facilities, and the animals. Animal care, grounds maintenance, construction, ed ...

. The 4,000-square foot Parks Gallery was renovated in 2013 and has been organized into three theme areas: Religion and Ritual, Land and Landscape, Migration and Movement, and also contains two mini galleries with revolving exhibits. This enables flexible curating of the museum's extensive materials: paintings can be placed near textiles, photographs, pottery and videos. The spaces can also be used for more flexible programming. The Gamble Firearms Gallery also was renovated in 2013. It now shows more of the context and place of firearms in the Old West; curators grouped firearms by themes: "hunting and trapping, the impact of technology on firearms, the conservation movement and the West in popular culture." This is part of the Western Frontiers: Stories of Fact and Fiction Gallery. *The Autry's Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection of

Native American art Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes C ...

is one of the most significant of its kind in the United States, second only to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

. The 238,000-piece collection includes 14,000 baskets, 10,000 ceramic items, 6,300 textiles and weavings, and more than 1,100 pieces of jewelry. It represents work by indigenous peoples from Alaska to South America, with an emphasis on cultures of California and the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

. *The Library and Archives of the Autry includes the collections of the Braun Research Library and the Autry Library. It is a research enterprise that supports scholarly work in Western history and the arts. In 2002, the Women of the West Museum of Colorado merged with the Autry Museum. This has broadened the scholarly and educational emphasis to include gender issues and women's experiences in the American West. From 2004 to 2015, it was known as the "Autry National Center of the American West and in October 2015, the museum began using the name "Autry Museum of the American West" to describe its "principal activities as a museum." "

References

External links

Autry Museum WebsitePast Productions: Native Voices at the Autry
{{Authority control Museums in Los Angeles Griffith Park American West museums in California Native American museums in California Art museums and galleries in Los Angeles History museums in California Women's museums in California Museums established in 1988 Organizations established in 1988 1988 establishments in California Native American arts organizations Native Americans in Los Angeles Gene Autry

Locations

Elements

References

Further reading

External links