This is one of the finest and most focused collections of Western art in America
The Sid Richardson Collection of Western Art, which boasts more than 60 paintings by premier Western artists, Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, will close its museum temporarily June 19, 2005, to make way for renovation and expansion of its home in Fort Worth’s Sundance Square.
The design for the transformation of the museum is by David M. Schwarz, the Washington, D.C., architect who has already left an indelible stamp on Fort Worth with buildings such as the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall, Sundance West and
the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
Schwarz’s plans call for an extensive facelift to the museum, a 1981 building that replicated the original 1895 building on Main Street between Third and Fourth. The building’s interior will be updated and the gallery space reconfigured into two sections,
allowing the museum to display a variety of rotating exhibits featuring both works from the museum’s permanent collection and on loan from other institutions. The plan also calls for the museum’s store to be enlarged and the façade to become more pedestrian-friendly to complement the ambience of Sundance Square. In addition to the renovation and reconfiguration of existing facilities, the museum will expand to the south into more than 1,800 square feet of adjacent ground-floor space, creating a group entrance, education facilities and visitor amenities.
“This work is long overdue,” said Richardson foundation Executive Vice President Val Wilkie. “The building has not been refurbished since it opened in 1981. Things wear out, and both the number of visitors and our educational programs have grown dramatically over these two and a half decades.”
The anticipated completion date for the project is July 2006. Arrangements are in progress to allow selected works from the collection to be on display at one or more other venues during the time the Richardson museum is closed for construction. For the duration of the project, both the paintings in the collection and the museum store’s unique selection of merchandise will continue to be viewable online at www.sidrmuseum.org.
The museum is the legacy of the late oilman and philanthropist Sid W. Richardson, who acquired the paintings from 1942 until his death in 1959. Since opening in 1982, the museum has been one of Sundance Square’s top attractions, drawing more than 50,000 visitors a year from all over the world.
“This is one of the finest and most focused collections of Western art in America,” said museum Director Jan Brenneman. “In addition to our national and international visitors, we give educational tours to a hundred or more school groups yearly, and bus groups visiting Fort Worth come by daily. The proposed improvements will make the museum much more accessible and user-friendly, especially for large groups, plus enhance the experience of the art for all our visitors.”
“The Sid Richardson museum is one of the most significant displays of art by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell to be seen anywhere,” said Rick Stewart, director of Fort Worth’s Amon Carter Museum. “The collection, when combined with that of the Carter, makes Fort Worth the No. 1 destination for anyone interested in the works of America’s greatest artists of the Old West.”
“The Sid Richardson museum is a treasure for Fort Worth. It connects downtown to both the Cultural District and The Stockyards in an extraordinary way,” added Doug Harman, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau, on the occasion of the museum’s 20th anniversary in 2002. “It makes downtown resonate with Western heritage.”
About the Collection Sid Richardson began purchasing the works of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell in the early 1940s with the help of New York art dealer Bert Newhouse and the encouragement of Fort Worth friend Amon Carter. Newhouse became Richardson’s principal dealer and helped him acquire the majority of his paintings between 1942 and 1950. Oilmen like Richardson, Amon Carter, Thomas Gilcrease of Tulsa, Frank Phillips of Bartlesville and R.W. Norton of Shreveport ?? themselves part of the Western legend of freewheeling enterprise ?? established through their collections a link to the romantic legends of the Old West.
Sid Richardson did not wholly limit his collection to Remington and Russell. With his preference for paintings with action or suspense, he also collected works by Charles Schreyvogel, Oscar E. Berninghaus, Frank Tenney Johnson, William R. Leigh, Edwin W. Deming, Gilbert Gaul, Peter Moran and Charles F. Browne. However, his primary interest was in Remington and Russell and he continued to add their works to his collection until a few years before his death on Sept. 30, 1959. Time has confirmed Richardson’s wisdom. Remington and Russell remain today what they were in their own day, the “titans of Western art.”
Ed. – We here at GuidetotheCity.biz feel that the Sid Richardson Collection is one of Fort Worth’s cultural jewels, an exhibit of the western culture that shaped our city and we will miss visiting the museum while the remodel takes place but will be there when the collection re-opens in 2006.
