Rocky Mountain Weekend

(May 20 - 23, 2021) – Denver, Colorado

Part 1 - The American Museum of Western Art

Stretching our pandemic weary legs, a bit more, Susan and I escaped to the Mile High City (no pun intended) for a weekend vacation for culture and dining out. Our first trip to Denver was on our short two-day honeymoon at Mr. Brown’s Palace a little more than fifty years ago.

Beyond stops to change planes, I last visited Denver on a political trip for George Bush ’41 in 1988, Today’s Denver is a renewed vibrant City teeming with young people, a revitalized downtown with many new buildings and residences. Though larger, perhaps Denver is the new Austin without the great music, but with Major League sports teams, a huge regional airport, and mass rail transit.

After a late arrival, on a super-sanitized United Airlines flight, we checked into the Indigo Hotel. The Indigo is a modern three-year-old high rise lodging across from the hip Union Station and Coors Field.

Beginning our first day, we settled for breakfast at Starbucks – glistening blueberry muffins with highly caffeinated beverages. Our first cultural adventure and the reason Denver was the selected destination was The American Museum of Western Art – The Anschutz Collection.

I had planned to see The Anschutz a year ago but was stopped by killer bug - 19. In keeping with health protocols, admittance was by prepaid reservation, socially distanced, and fully masked (as were all the cultural stops we made in Denver.) We arrived at our scheduled time and were greeted by name, a nice warm touch that made us feel welcome.

The museum is housed in the historic Navarre Building, immediately across Tremont Place from the Brown Palace. Constructed in 1880 the building was built as a school for girls but by 1889 converted into a gambling house and shortly thereafter included a brothel (Big Surprise!) In future iterations it became a white tablecloth restaurant and then jazz club.

In 1980 William Foxley purchased the Navarre to house his collection of western art, naming it, The American Museum of Western Art. During the 1990s oilman and entrepreneur, Philip Anschutz, purchased the building and Museum of Western Art (without Mr. Foxley’s art), then renovated, and restored the building to house his own extensive collection of Western art.

Phillip Anschutz’s collection is Spectacular!

My Mother Ship will always be the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. But in respect to quality and with consideration to The Carter’s wider scope of mission, The Anschutz Collection is on par with my Fort Worth darling.  

Specifically, to Western Art, Anschutz has pieces from the best artists of the many genres. Each object demonstrates the finest aspects of each artist.  

The Anschutz Collection includes some 600 pieces of which about 300 are on display. The display within each gallery is placed salon style, in large groupings rather than individually.  By design the galleries are laid out chronologically, by era, but within each period also topically.

Covid disrupted the normal chronological design of the exhibit. The permanent galleries are arranged to be seen from the bottom floor to the top floor. However, because of the museum’s Covid protocols viewing began on the top floor at the twentieth century and clawed through historical and artistic developments backwards to the early nineteenth century.

Exiting the elevator on the top floor, the first thing that grabbed my attention was a large painting (nine feet by five feet) “Staging in California.” The grand piece was painted by none other than South Dakota favorite John Gutzon Borglum. Given the magnitude of Borglum’s heroic South Dakota statue, “Mount Rushmore”, I should not have been shocked.

Borglum’s painting caused me to see California historically from a different perspective. The stagecoach, the intensity of the horses, and the landscape caused me to consider California as being the end of the trail and the end of a way of life on the open range.

The American Museum of Western Art has such a variety of great art and diversity of artists. Rembrandt Peale, Karl Bodmer, Thomas Moran, William Raney, Charles Schreyvogel. George de Forest Brush, Thomas Eakins, Ernest Blumenschein, Georgia O’Keefe, Chide Hassam, Thomas Hart Benton and so many more. During the three hours stay I studied extraordinary great art.

Certainly, the highlight was when I approached the gallery of twentieth century American Regionalist painters, I became so excited, I thought I might be having a stroke. There it was: Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Kim Wiggins, and Edward Hopper!

https://anschutzcollection.org/american-regionalist-painters

Two portraits were my other high point of this venue: Mable Dodge Luhan by Nicolai Fechin and Miguel of Tesuque by Robert Henri.

This amazing collection is rightly a place where art meets history.

I left physically exhausted yet inspired.