The West As America
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''The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820–1920'' was an
art exhibition An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhi ...
organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (then known as the National Museum of American Art, or NMAA) in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
in 1991, featuring a large collection of paintings, photographs, and other visual art created during the period from 1820 to 1920 which depicted images and iconography of the American frontier. The goal of the curators of ''The West as America'' was to reveal how artists during this period visually revised the conquest of the
West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
in an effort to correspond with a prevailing national ideology that favored Western expansion. By mixing New West
historiographical Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...
interpretation with
Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
art, the curators sought not only to show how these frontier images have defined American ideas of the national past but also to dispel the traditional beliefs behind the images. Many who visited the exhibition missed the curators' point and instead became incensed with what they saw as the curators' dismantling of the history and legacy of the American frontier, which caused an unforeseen controversy that, according to art critics, "engaged the public in the debate over western revisionism on an unprecedented scale." Controversial reviews generated widespread media coverage, both negative and positive, in leading newspapers, magazines, and art journals. Television crews from
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, and the
United States Information Agency The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to " public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bil ...
vied to videotape the show before its 164 paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and prints, along with the 55 text panels accompanying the artworks, were taken down.
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
members of the
Senate Appropriations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee is the largest committ ...
were angered by what they termed the show's "
political agenda In politics, a political agenda is a list of subjects or problems (issues) to which government officials as well as individuals outside the government are paying serious attention to at any given time. The political agenda is most often shaped ...
" and threatened to cut funds 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 ...
. The paintings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum represent the United States government's oldest art collection; in its 160-year history, the museum had not received much detrimental publicity before this exhibition. Several key factors, including a prominent venue, skillful promotion, widespread publicity, an elaborate catalog, and the importance of the artworks themselves, all contributed to the impact of the exhibition. Timing also played a part in fostering public response both pro and con, as the show's run coincided with events such as the
collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, the allied victory in the Gulf War, the resurgence of
multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...
, and the revival of public interest in western themes in fashion, advertising, music, literature, and film.


Background

The history of the United States'
westward expansion The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independe ...
is viewed by some as a vital component in interpreting the structure of American culture and the modern national identity. There are competing visions of the western past that assume different western significances; it was the newer versions of western history that were emphasized at the 1991 exhibition. NMAA director
Elizabeth Broun Elizabeth "Betsy" Broun (born December 15, 1946 in Kansas City) is an American art historian and curator. Broun served as the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum from 1989 to 2016, and is the longest-servin ...
stated, "The museum took a major step toward redefining western history, western art and national culture." The conclusions set forth in ''The West as America'' were rooted in revisionist studies such as
Henry Nash Smith Henry Nash Smith (September 29, 1906 – June 6, 1986) was a scholar of American culture and literature. He was co-founder of the academic discipline "American studies". He was also a noted Mark Twain scholar, and the curator of the Mark Twain ...
's ''Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth'', Richard Slotkin's ''Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860'' (1973), and William H. and William N. Goetzmann's book and 1986 PBS television series, ''The West of the Imagination''.


Layout

''The West as America'' included 164 works of
visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...
, including paintings, drawings, prints, engravings, photographs, sculptures, and others, created by 86 well-known artists of varying nationality during the period between 1820 and 1920. It was curated by William H. Truettner and a team of seven scholars of
American art Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...
, including Nancy K. Anderson, Patricia Hills, Elizabeth Johns, Joni Louise Kinsey, Howard R. Lamar, Alex Nemerov, and Julie Schimmel. A text panel in the last section of the show reads:
The art of
Frederic Remington Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Stat ...
,
Charles Schreyvogel Charles Schreyvogel (January 4, 1861 – January 27, 1912) was an American painter of Western subject matter in the days of the disappearing frontier. Schreyvogel was especially interested in military life. Life He was born in Hoboken, New Je ...
, Charles Russell, Henry Farny, and other turn-of-the-century artists has been called a "permanent record" of nineteenth century frontier America. Yet, as the accompanying photographs of Schreyvogel attests, these artists often created their work in circumstances vastly removed from frontier America itself.
Artist Frederic Remington's painting ''Fight for the Water Hole'' (1903), which was displayed in the last section of the show's thematic exhibit, was accompanied by a wall text with a quote from the artist that read:
I sometimes feel that I am trying to do the impossible with my pictures in not having a chance to work direct but as there are no people such as I paint it's "studio" or nothing.
Truettner's intention was not to criticize western art but to acknowledge the way the art of the West imaginatively invented its subjects. Truettner sought to demonstrate the deep ties between the art and the artists' participation in the
American Art-Union The American Art-Union (1839–1851) was a subscription-based organization whose goal was to enlighten and educate an American public to a national art, while providing a support system for the viewing and sales of art “executed by artists in th ...
during the
antebellum period In the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period (from la, ante bellum, lit= before the war) spanned the end of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. The Antebellum South was characterized by ...
, and to show that many artists' works were influenced by patronage from capitalists and industrialists of the
Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...
. Another wall text read:
Although they reveal isolated facts about the West, the paintings in this section reveal far more about the urban, industrial culture in which they were made and sold. For it was according to this culture's attitudes – attitudes about race, class, and history – that artists such as Schreyvogel and Remington created that place we know as the "Old West.""
The
National Museum of American Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...
produced a 390-page book with more than 300 illustrations for the exhibit, which was edited by Truettner and included a foreword by Broun. In addition, the NMAA produced a handbook entitled "A Guide for Teachers", intended for grades 10–12, to help students develop the ability to interpret works of art and to see how and why works of art create meaning. The handbook states, "…the exhibition at the NMAA argues that this art is not an objective account of history and that art is not necessarily history; ''seeing is not necessarily believing''." Both the curator and the director stated they presented an exhibition on American art that described how images have been misconstrued as truthful representations of history, "But," Broun stated, "the public changed the terms of the debate." Truettner added, "We thought we were doing a show on images in history, but the public was more concerned that we had challenged a sacred premise." In an effort to create a show that would effectively question past interpretations of familiar works by these artists, the curator divided the artworks into six thematic categories that were accompanied by 55 written text labels. The text labels commented on the artwork and introduced popular and/or dissenting material. Through the use of the 55 text labels, the exhibition curator explicitly asked the audience to "see through" the images to the historical conditions that produced them. This technique raised what critics called "uncomfortable questions about basic American myths and their relationship to art."


"Prelude to Expansion: Repainting the Past"

The exhibition began with historical paintings that introduced the concept of national expansion and included representations of colonial and pre-colonial events such as white male Europeans encountering the unknown North American continent for the first time. One of the first text labels read:
The paintings in this gallery and those that follow should not be seen as a record of time and place. More often than not they are contrived views, meant to answer the hopes and desires of people facing a seemingly unlimited and mostly unsettled portion of the nation.
Truettner writes "...images from
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
to
Kit Carson Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and ...
show the discovery and settlement of the West as a heroic undertaking. Many nineteenth-century artists and the public believed that these images represented a faithful account of civilization moving westward. A more recent approach argues that these images are carefully staged fiction and that their role was to justify the hardship and conflict of nation building. Western scenes extolled progress but rarely noted damaging social and environmental change." Another text label read:
This exhibition assumes that all history is unconsciously edited by those who make it. Looking beneath the surface of these images gives us a better understanding of why national problems created during the era of western expansion still affect us today.
Works in this section included
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (May 24, 1816July 18, 1868) was a German-American history painter best known for his 1851 painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware''. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography Leutze was born ...
's ''Christopher Columbus on Santa Maria in 1492'' (1855), which shows
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
gesturing toward the
New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
, and '' The Storming of Teocalli by Cortez and his Troops'' (1848); Peter F. Rothermel's ''Columbus before the Queen'' (1852) and ''Landing of the Pilgrims'' (1854);
Thomas Moran Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 – August 25, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth too ...
's ''Ponce de León in Florida, 1514'' (1878);
Joshua Shaw Joshua Shaw (1776–1860) was an English American artist and inventor. Early life Joshua Shaw was born in Billingborough, Lincolnshire, England in 1776 and was orphaned at the age of 7. To survive he worked for a local farmer as a bird scare ...
's ''The Coming of the White Man'' (1850); and
Robert Walter Weir Robert Walter Weir (June 18, 1803 – May 1, 1889) was an American artist and educator and is considered a painter of the Hudson River School. Weir was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829 and was an instructor at the United States M ...
's ''Embarkation of the Pilgrims at Delft Haven, Holland, July 22, 1620'' (1857). Colonial paintings included Weir's ''The Landing of Henry Hudson'' (1838) and Leutze's ''Founding of Maryland'' (1860).


"Picturing Progress in the Era of Western Expansion"

The second section of the exhibition focused on portraits of prominent settlers and images of scouts, pioneers, and European immigrants moving west across an unpopulated landscape. William S. Jewett's ''The Promised Land – The Grayson Family'' (1850), portrays a prosperous-looking man with his wife and son, all gazing west, posed against a golden landscape. The text labels called it "more rhetorical than factual", an image that "ignores the controversy that attended national expansion by equating the westward trek of the Grayson Family with white people's belief in the idea of progress." John Gast's ''American Progress'' (1872) depicts the ideal of " Manifest Destiny", a notion popular in the 1840s and 1850s which expounded that the United States was impelled by providence to expand its territory. Called the "Spirit of the Frontier", the scene was widely distributed as an engraving that portrayed settlers moving west, guided and protected by a goddess-like national personification known as Columbia, aided by technology (such as railways and telegraphs), and driving Native Americans and bison into obscurity. The painting shows the angel-like Columbia symbolically "enlightening" the darkened west as light from the eastern side of the painting follows her.
Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...
's ''Emigrants Crossing the Plains'' (1867) portrays a picturesque party of Germans traveling to
Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...
. The canvas shows the warmth of the setting sun and spectacular hues streaking across the sky, which illuminate the sheer cliffs to the right. According to Truettner, paintings constructed this way brought to life for nineteenth-century viewers the western pioneer experience. Other images of western migration included
George Caleb Bingham George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as "the Missouri Artist". Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American C ...
's ''Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap'' (1851–1852). Truettner describes
Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...
as the quintessential pioneer, whose energy and resourcefulness helped him to build a generous livelihood from a succession of wilderness homesteads. His image had become a national symbol exemplifying the spirit of adventure and accomplishment. But Boone's initial visit to
Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
, Truettner explains, was prompted by real-estate speculation. He writes, "…in fact hese menwere no more than commercial vanguards. They were trespassers on foreign territory who began the process of separating Indians from their land. These images communicated that opportunities on the frontier awaited everyone and perpetuated the myth that the settling of the west was peaceful, when in reality it was bitterly contested every step of the way."


"Inventing 'The Indian'"

The exhibition's third section used several rooms to group three different and conflicting stereotypes of Native Americans, which were thematically subtitled as the ''Noble Savage'', the ''Threatening Savage'', and the ''Vanishing Race''. Combined sample portraits with revisionist text informed by Richard Slotkin's book ''Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860'' (1973) and
Richard Drinnon Richard T. Drinnon (January 4, 1925 - April 19, 2012) was professor emeritus of history at Bucknell University. He also taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught courses on American history. He was denied tenure due to his p ...
's ''Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire building'' (1980) generated so much antagonism that Truettner voluntarily revised about ten of the fifty-five labels in an effort to tone down the message and to please anthropologists. Truettner's original label read, "This predominance of negative and violent views was a manifestation of Indian hatred, a largely manufactured, calculated reversal of the basic facts of white encroachment and deceit." Truettner eliminated this sentence from the revised text. Another label stated, "These images give visual expression to white attitudes toward Native peoples who were considered racially and culturally inferior." The edited version of this label read, "These images give visual expression to white attitudes toward Native peoples." Truettner explained in an oral interview with Andrew Gulliford that he made changes to the text because he "wanted to catch visitors, not alienate them" and because he believes "in communicating with the larger museum audience."
Charles Bird King Charles Bird King (September 26, 1785 – March 18, 1862) was an American portrait artist, best known for his portrayals of significant Native American leaders and tribesmen. His style incorporated Dutch influences, which can be seen most promi ...
painted noble images of Indians as seen in ''Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri and Pawnees'' (1822). The accompanying text labels read:
Artistic representations of Indians developed simultaneously with white interest in taking their land. At first, Indians were seen as possessing nobility and innocence. This assessment gave way gradually to a far more violent view that stressed hostile savagery…apparent in contrasting works…
Charles Deas' ''The Death Struggle'' (1845) depicts a white man and a Native American locked in mortal combat and tumbling over a cliff. The text labels read:
Indians were inevitably represented as hostile aggressors at the very moment settlers and the army were invading their land. Such a patent change of image tells us that white artists were presenting a stereotype rather than a balanced view of Indian life.
In T.H. Matteson's ''The Last of the Race'' (1847), Truettner writes, "Violent encounters were not the only means of "solving the Indian problem."" Truettner adds that both Matteson's ''The Last of the Race'' and
John Mix Stanley John Mix Stanley (January 17, 1814 – April 10, 1872) was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits ...
's ''Last of Their Race'' (1857) "suggested Indians would eventually be buried under the waves of the Pacific." Another series of paintings represented acculturation themes that predicted Indians would be peacefully absorbed into white society, thereby neutralizing "aggressive" racial characteristics. Charles Nahl's ''Sacramento Indian with Dogs'' (1867) was among this group of paintings. Truettner concludes, "The myth in this case denies the Indian problem by solving it two ways: those who could not accept Anglo-Saxon standards of progress were doomed to extinction."


"Settlement and Development: Claiming the West"

The fourth section included paintings that portrayed the successful lives of miners and settlers and depicted the give-and-take of American frontier democracy; also included were popular culture and advertising images. Works in this section included
George Caleb Bingham George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as "the Missouri Artist". Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American C ...
's ''Stump Speaking'' (1853–1854) and ''Canvassing for a Vote'' (1851–52),
John Mix Stanley John Mix Stanley (January 17, 1814 – April 10, 1872) was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits ...
's ''Oregon City on the Willamette River'' (1850–1852), Charles Nahl and
Frederick August Wenderoth Frederick August Wenderoth or F. A. Wenderoth (1819 – 1884) was a German-born American painter and photographer. Born and educated in Cassel, where he first learned to paint from his father, he established a lifelong friendship with Charles Ch ...
's ''Miners in the Sierras'' (1851–1852), Mrs. Jonas W. Brown's ''Mining in the Boise Basin in the Early Seventies'' (c. 1870–80), and George W. Hoag's ''Record Wheat Harvest'' (1876). Truettner writes that these works ".... support the myth that there was enough for everyone. Cities were models of organization and industry, exploitation of land and natural resources is featured with engaging naiveté, and industrial pollution is offered as a picturesque accessory to the landscape. These paintings convert frontier life to a national idiom of prosperity and promise."


"'The Kiss of Enterprise': The Western Landscape as Symbol and Resource"

The fifth section focused on a series of
landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...
that represented, in succession, the Green River Bluffs of Wyoming, the
Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...
, the Grand Canyon,
Donner Pass Donner Pass is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake and Donner Memorial State Park about west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual appr ...
, and the Sequoia and Redwood trees of
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, which portrayed the west as both Edenic wonders and emblems of national pride. According to Truettner, the market for scenes of commerce and industry coexisted with a "taste for heroic landscape" and included photographs and paintings of the western landscape as both symbol and exploitable resource. The images of the vast west meant to serve as a promotion to inspire further migration. Photographs chronicle the building of railroads and depict black steam engines traveling through the
Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
. Works in this section included
Oscar E. Berninghaus Oscar Edmund Berninghaus (October 2, 1874 – April 27, 1952) was an American artist and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. He is best known for his paintings of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans, New Mexico ...
' ''A Showery Day, Grand Canyon'' (1915), Andrew Joseph Russell's ''Temporary and Permanent Bridges and Citadel Rock, Green River'' (1868),
Thomas Moran Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 – August 25, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth too ...
's ''The Chasm of the Colorado'' (1873–1874), and
Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...
's ''Donner Lake from the Summit'' (1873), as well as commercial landscapes and advertising images by unidentified artists, entitled ''Splendid'' (1935) and ''Desert Bloom'' (1938).


"Doing the 'Old American': The Image of the American West, 1880–1920"

With the first five sections serving as metaphors of progress, the sixth and last section took the exhibit in a different direction and was deemed by many critics as the most controversial phase of the exhibition. Truettner explained that the ideology used to justify expansion had suddenly achieved permanent status, and without more frontier left to conquer, artists and their images were now called on to relay the ideology of the past to future generations. Truettner claims the images in this section "speak not to the actual events but to the memory of those events and its impact to future audiences." Critics saw this as the curator's attempt to deny that the art of Frederic Remington, Charles Schreyvogel, Charles Russell, and Henry Farny had any basis in western realism and that their images were merely products of composite sketches based on photographs. Attempting to place these artists of western frontier images in an eastern urban context, the exhibit label states, "Although they reveal isolated facts about the West, the paintings in this section reveal far more about the urban, industrial culture in which they were made and sold." Truettner writes in the show's catalog that when artist Charles Russell was asked in 1919 who purchased his paintings, the Montana artist explained that his paintings were purchased by "Pittsburghers most of all. They may not be so strong on art but they are real men and they like real life." Other works included Russell's ''Caught in the Circle'' (1903) and ''For Supremacy'' (1895),
Charles Schreyvogel Charles Schreyvogel (January 4, 1861 – January 27, 1912) was an American painter of Western subject matter in the days of the disappearing frontier. Schreyvogel was especially interested in military life. Life He was born in Hoboken, New Je ...
's ''Defending the Stockade'' (c. 1905), and Henry Farny's ''The Captive'' (1885). Another painting entitled ''The Captive'' (1892), by Irving Couse, generated a lot of critical reviews. Roger B. Stein writes, "The much disputed critical reading of Irving Couse's ''The Captive'' (1892), an image of an old chief with his young white "victim," raised explicit questions about the intersection of gender and race and the function of the gaze in constructing meaning in this troubled emotional and cultural territory in a way that shocked viewers because it had not been prepared for earlier." Stein adds:
The curatorial experiment failed not because what the textblock said was untrue (though it was partial, inadequate and rhetorically over-insistent) but because the significant ''verbal'' comment on gender had been withheld until the last room of the exhibit. Visually, ''The West As America'' was a fascinating study of gender issues from the first Leutze images forward. One may legitimately reply that gender was not the intellectual territory which this exhibition staked out in its verbal script, but my argument here is based upon the premise that a museum exhibition is – or ought to be – first and last a visual experience (the book or catalog is another and different mode of communication).
The label read: The label also went on to suggest that an open teepee flap implied sexual encounter and that arrow shafts become phallic objects.


Reactions

A writer for ''The Journal of American History'', Andrew Gulliford, stated in a 1992 article (also titled "The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820–1920") that "''The West as America'' gave no praise or tribute to the grandeur and majesty of the western landscape or to the nation-building ethos of the pioneering experience. Instead, exhibition labels presented the truth of conquest and exploitation in US history, an approach that struck many visitors and reviewers as heretical." According to ''
The Western Historical Quarterly The Western History Association (WHA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was founded in 1961 at Santa Fe, New Mexico by Ray Allen Billington et al. Included in the field of study are the American West and western Canada. The Western Histor ...
'' writer B. Byron Price, the traditions and myths at the core of western art, in addition to the expense of exhibit installations and practical constraints such as time, space, format, patronage, and availability of collections, contribute to the resistance of museums to attempt shows of historical revision and why conventional monolithic views of the West as a romantic and triumphant adventure remain the mode in many art exhibits today. Roger B. Stein, in an article for ''
The Public Historian ''The Public Historian'' is the official publication of the National Council on Public History. It is a quarterly academic journal published by University of California Press, with the journal's editorial offices housed in the History Department, ...
'' entitled "Visualizing Conflict in 'The West As America'", took the view that the show effectively communicated its revisionist claims by insisting upon a non-literal way of reading images through its use of textblocks. He writes, "Visually the exhibition made its subject not just "images of the West," but the process of seeing and the process of making images – the images are social and aesthetic constructions, choices we make about a subject matter." Other critics accused the NMAA curator of "redefining western artists as apologists for Manifest Destiny who were culturally blind to the displacement of indigenous people and ignored the environmental degradation that accompanied the settling of the West." Previous exhibitions and programs that had focused on the history of the American West include ''"The American Frontier: Images & Myths"'' at the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
in 1973; ''"Frontier America: The Far West"'' at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1975; ''"Treasures of the Old West"'' at the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in 1984; ''"American Frontier Life"'' at the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art in 1987; and ''"Frontier America"'' at the
Buffalo Bill Historical Center The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, formerly known as the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, is a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West located in Cody, Wyoming. The five museums include the ...
in 1988. Revisionist themes appear more often in the story lines of high-profile temporary and traveling shows like ''The American Cowboy'', organized by the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
in 1983, ''The Myth of the West'', a 1990 show offering from the
Henry Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the Univers ...
of the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
, and ''Discovered Lands, Invented Pasts'', a cooperative effort of the
Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...
, the
Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
, and the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...
in 1992. These shows did not generate the level of controversy seen at the NMAA's ''The West As America'' exhibit. According to art reviews, what set apart past shows on the west and ''The West as America'' was the show's "strident rhetoric". Andrew Gulliford writes, "Few Americans were prepared for the blunt and incisive exhibit labels, which sought to reshape the opinions of museum visitors and to jar them out of their traditional assumptions about western art as authentic." According to B. Byron Price, "Several people appreciated the serious, critical attention accorded to artwork and found merit in the complexity of analysis and the curator's interpretation of western art."


Political issues

The opening of ''The West as America'' coincided with the final phase of the
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
in 1991. According to reviewers in the media, for those who understood the war as a triumph of American values, the exhibition's critical stance toward western expansion seemed like a full-blown attack on the nation's founding principles. The language of the show, while not the curator's goal, "played into the hands of those who would equate cultural criticism with national betrayal." In a book for comments by visitors, historian and former Librarian of Congress
Daniel Boorstin Daniel Joseph Boorstin (October 1, 1914 – February 28, 2004) was an American historian at the University of Chicago who wrote on many topics in American and world history. He was appointed the twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in ...
wrote that the exhibition was "...a perverse, historically inaccurate, destructive exhibit… and no credit to the Smithsonian." Boorstin's comment prompted Senator
Ted Stevens Theodore Fulton Stevens Sr. (November 18, 1923 – August 9, 2010) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009. He was the longest-serving Republican Senator in history at the time he left ...
of Alaska and Senator
Slade Gorton Thomas Slade Gorton III (January 8, 1928 – August 19, 2020) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Washington from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1989 until 2001. A member of the Republican Party, he hel ...
of Washington, two senior members of the
Senate Appropriations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee is the largest committ ...
, to express outrage over the exhibit and to threaten to cut funding 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 ...
. By appealing to patriotism, the Senators used funding of the Smithsonian as an opportunity to criticize the "dangers of liberalism." Stevens argued that the institutional guardians of culture – the federally funded Smithsonian and other related federally funded arts programs in general – had become "enemies of freedom." According to the Senators, the problem with ''The West As America'' as well as with other curatorial controversies produced by the Smithsonian and the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
such as the Mapplethorpe and Andre Serrano photographs, was that it "breeds division within our country." Citing two other Smithsonian projects, a documentary about the Exxon Valdez oil spill and a television series about the founding of America that reportedly accused the United States of
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
against Native Americans, Stevens warned Robert McAdams, the head of the Smithsonian, that he was "in for a battle." In a reference to the funding of the Smithsonian, which in part is regulated by the Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens added, "I'm going to get other people to help me make you make sense." To many in the national press and the museum community, the Senators' attack on the Smithsonian and the exhibition at the
National Museum of American Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...
was one movement in a larger effort to transform culture into a "
wedge issue A wedge issue is a political or social issue, often of a controversial or divisive nature, which splits apart a demographic or population group. Wedge issues can be advertised or publicly aired in an attempt to strengthen the unity of a populatio ...
". The term, often used interchangeably with "hot button issue", is used by politicians to exploit issues using highly contentious
loaded language Loaded language (also known as loaded terms, emotive language, high-inference language and language-persuasive techniques) is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations. This type of language is ve ...
to divide the opposing voter base and to galvanize a large
electorate Electorate may refer to: * The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate'' * The dominion of a Prince-elector The prince-electors (german: Kurfürst pl. , cz, Kurfiřt, ...
around the issue. " Political correctness" became another expression used frequently in the debate. The use of words and phrases such as "race", "class", and " sexual stereotype" in the exhibit's text labels allowed critics of so-called "
multicultural education Multicultural education is a set of educational strategies developed to provide students with knowledge about the histories, cultures, and contributions of diverse groups. It draws on insights from multiple fields, including ethnic studies and wo ...
" to condemn the show as "
politically correct ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
". In the minds of the critics, the exhibition served as proof that multicultural education had spread from the campuses to the Smithsonian. ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', in an editorial entitled "Pilgrims and Other Imperialists", labeled the exhibition "an entirely hostile ideological assault on the nation's founding and history." Syndicated columnist
Charles Krauthammer Charles Krauthammer (; March 13, 1950 – June 21, 2018) was an American political columnist. A moderate liberal who turned independent conservative as a political pundit, Krauthammer won the Pulitzer Prize for his columns in ''The Washingt ...
condemned the exhibition as "tendentious, dishonest, and finally, puerile" and called it "the most politically correct museum exhibit in American history." In a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 15, 1991, Stevens criticized the Smithsonian for demonstrating a " leftist slant" and accused ''The West As America'' of having a "
political agenda In politics, a political agenda is a list of subjects or problems (issues) to which government officials as well as individuals outside the government are paying serious attention to at any given time. The political agenda is most often shaped ...
", citing the exhibition's 55 text cards accompanying the artworks as a direct rejection of the traditional view of United States history as a triumphant, inevitable march westward. The head of the Smithsonian, Robert McAdams, responded to the attack by saying he welcomed an inquiry, which he hoped would allay concerns and added, "I don't think the Smithsonian has any business, or ever had any business, developing a political agenda." Stevens called the show "perverted" but later conceded to ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
'' magazine he had not actually seen the exhibit on the West but had "merely been alerted by the comment posted by Daniel Boorstin in the museum's guestbook."


Public commentary

There were more than 700 visitor comments recorded in the museum's guestbook in Washington, D.C., generating three large volumes of commentary. Viewers passed judgment on the works, the curator's competence, and the tone of the explanatory texts, previous comments in the comment book, and local reviews of the exhibition. Praise dominated the criticism – 510 of the 735 comments were generally positive. One hundred and ninety-nine people signaled out the wall texts for praise, while 177 felt negatively about them.["Showdown at "The West As America Exhibition." American Art 5, no 3 (Summer 1991): 2–11 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3109055 (accessed March 5, 2012) Comments in the guestbook show that for many of the exhibition's younger supporters, asking questions about western images seemed not only correct but even the obvious thing to do. Those disagreeing with the text generally thought the images should be allowed to speak for themselves and felt that even without the text explanations the images would reveal a truthful account of westward expansion. The opposing group, some of whom still objected to the texts, agreed the images misrepresented history in that they cast the westward movement as too much of a heroic odyssey. One commentary typical of those disagreeing with the texts read: Another viewer offered: Those defending the exhibit wrote: Some viewers had mixed feelings: Some commented on others' comments:


Attendance and cancellations

''The West as America'' was scheduled to run from March 15 – July 7, 1991, but was extended an additional 13 days to accommodate a growing audience. Attendance to the National Museum of American Art increased by 60% over the same period in the previous year. While praise dominated the comments in the guestbook in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, show promoters were denied the opportunity to measure the variety and intensity of reaction in other parts of the country, notably in the Western United States itself, because of the cancellation of two proposed exhibit tours at the St. Louis Art Museum and the Denver Art Museum. The cancellations were not due to the controversy, but rather a result of the continuing recession and the $90,000 participation fee, which was only part of a total estimated cost of $150,000 per site.


Legacy

The debate surrounding ''The West as America'' raised questions about the U.S. government's involvement in and funding of the arts, and whether public museums were able or unable to express ideas that are critical of the United States without the risk of being censored by the government. The Smithsonian Institution receives funding from the United States government through the House and Senate Interior, Environmental and Related Agencies Appropriation subcommittees. The Smithsonian is approximately 62% federally funded. In addition, the Smithsonian generates revenue from trust funds and contributions from corporate, foundation, and individual sources, as well as from Smithsonian Enterprises, which include stores, restaurants, IMAX theaters, gifts, and catalogs. ''The West as America'' cost $500,000 and was covered with private money. At the time of the exhibition in 1991, the Smithsonian received about $300 million per year in federal funds. Federal funding to the Smithsonian has increased by 170.5% over the last 21 years, with funding for 2012 totaling $811.5 million. Total funding of arts-related federal programs in 2011 totaled just over $2.5 billion. The Smithsonian Institution continues to receive the biggest federal arts allocation, receiving $761 million in 2011. The
Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...
received $455 million in 2011 (of which about $90 million goes to radio stations). With the total federal budget for fiscal year 2011 being $3.82 trillion, federal arts funding in that year accounted for approximately 0.066% (sixty-six one-thousandths of one percent) of the total federal budget. The Smithsonian's federal appropriation for 2012 of $811.5 million represents an increase of $52 million above its 2011 appropriation. The requested budget for fiscal year 2013 is $857 million, a $45.5 million increase over 2012 funding. With a fiscal year 2013 total federal budget of $3.803 trillion, Smithsonian funding represents 0.00023% (twenty-three hundred-thousandths of one percent) of the total 2013 federal budget.


Featured artists


See also

* American Old West *
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 American History * Manifest Destiny *
Revisionist Western The revisionist Western (also called the anti-Western, sometimes revisionist antiwestern) is a sub-genre of the Western film. Designated a post-classical variation of the traditional Western, the revisionist subverts the myth and romance of th ...
* Western Expansion of the United States * Patronage


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:West As America Art Exhibition, The 1991 in Washington, D.C. Art exhibitions in the United States History of United States expansionism Smithsonian Institution exhibitions