Art Collections
General
Truly a hidden treasure, the Museum is graced with one of the finest collections of Western art in the country, tracing the genre from early explorer artists up to present day masters.
The Museum’s history collection focuses on the peoples and culture that inspired the artwork, a treasure trove of all things Western, Arizonan and Wickenburgian.
Collection #1 (art)
Donation by Aiken and Jane Fisher form the backbone of the Museum’s Western Art Collection and their legacy continues through purchases and bequests, a veritable Who’s Who of Western art history.
Collection #2 (history)
Like the proverbial phoenix, the Museum’s history collections flourished after the 1972 fire through donations large and small.
The Desert Caballeros Western Museum is home to one of the nation's most comprehensive roundups of Western art, with over 700 paintings, sculpture, photographs and works on paper spanning over 200 years of Western art. The journey begins with George Catlin (1796-1872), one of the country’s foremost explorer artists. Because Catlin lived prior to the invention of the camera, his paintings such as Black Hawk and the Prophet provided America and the world with their only visual record of the West. Holdings include work by members of the Rocky Mountain School such as Albert Bierstadt. Trained in the romantic European style, this artist first came west in 1859 with a survey party. His Pikes Peak celebrates the West's "natural cathedrals." Another gem, Thomas Moran's A Passing Storm, is a leading example of this romantic, awe-inspiring style.
Continuing its walk-through-time tour, the Museum is privileged to own several works by two giants of narrative realism: Frederic Remington (1861-1909) and Charles M. Russell (1869-1926). Remington’s sculpture, The Rattlesnake, dramatizes the perils faced daily by the West’s cowboys while Russell’s golden painting, The Navajos, is one of only four done by the artist depicting the Southwest.
The collection also focuses on works created by the true Westerner -- artists who could handle a lariat as skillfully as they could a paintbrush or chisel. As a teenager, Lon Megargee got his hands dirty taming wild horses and punching cattle at Tex Singleton's Bull Ranch in Wickenburg. The Phoenix-based A-1 Beer used the original of his painting, The Cowboy's Dream, in its advertising. Another cowboy artist, Olaf Wieghorst, who was originally from Denmark, came west at the age of 19 and began riding trails in New Mexico. His painting titled Roundin’ Up the Herd recalls the adventuresome times of the Dane’s youth.
Leaving old trails behind, the collection also takes a look at the artists who are interpreting what is called the “New West.” The painting Ganado Clouds by Phoenix's Ed Mell reflects both the influences of cubism and modernism while Merrill Mahaffey’s Kaibab Reflection is an accurate depiction of this section of the Grand Canyon.