Window on the West:
Views from the American Frontier,
The Phelan Collection

November 10, 2007 – January 6, 2008

Sponsored by Lincoln Financial Foundation

Window on the West presents over sixty works by many of the best known Western artists. The exhibition features paintings by Albert Bierstadt, Karl Bodmer, John Frederick Kensett, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Alfred Jacob Miller, and Frederic Remington; the first academically trained Native American artist, Lone Wolf; and one of the first two women artists of California. The works have been borrowed from Arthur J. Phelan of Chevy Chase, Maryland, who has been developing his specialized art collection for more than 30 years.

Window on the West: Views from the American Frontier offers a unique view of Western development that differs from many of the more mythic interpretations that have ingrained themselves into America’s popular imagination. This is the West presented not as a romanticized legend so often displayed on the silver screen, but rather as a newly minted frontier seen through the eyes of those artists who personally explored the West and recorded on paper and canvas what they discovered.

Loosely divided into three themes, Window on the West explores the ways in which America’s ideas of national identity became intertwined with, and expressed through, our visual conception of the Western frontier.

Natural Beauty, Natural Wonder consists of landscapes sometimes painted to lure potential settlers with depictions of the wide open spaces, mountainous skylines, and geological formations foreign to the native scenery of the East Coast. Similarly, views depicting Western Settlement and Development attempted to convince potential settlers that frontier life, while still exotic, offered luxuries and security comparable to what they were leaving behind. A third section, Images and Icons, documents the people who came before and after settlement began to alter the raw natural beauty of the landscape.

This exhibition provides a diverse visual anthology of Western settlement illustrating how certain art works are products of their social, political and economic contexts. The Phelan Collection reminds us to think critically about how the West was really won, and how much of this truth is actually reflected in a typical John Wayne Sunday matinee.

Exhibition and tour organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions.

Lecture & Opening Reception

Friday, November 9, 2007

Free to FWMoA Members
$5 non-members

Lecture by Dr. Elizabeth Kuebler-Wolf – 6:30 pm
(gallery doors open at 5:30 pm)
Opening Reception – 7:30 pm - 9 pm

Catering by Lindi Miller of Deli 620

RSVP to Brian Wagner 422-6467, ext. 338 or wagner@fwmoa.org prior to November 5.


Back by popular demand, Dr. Elizabeth Kuebler-Wolf will use works in Window on the West: Views from the American Frontier to chronicle the development of art of the America west and highlight major themes and influences. Dr. Kuebler-Wolf is an assistant professor of art history in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Saint Francis.

Silver members and above are invited to join Executive Director Charles Shepard for a Preview Cocktail Party at 5:30 pm in the Auer Library. Please RSVP to Brian Wagner.