The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is home to the most extensive collection of material related to sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor (1860–1950). The museum’s unrivaled holdings include the artist’s papers, personal effects, studio paraphernalia, and original works of art. Vast archival collections are made available for research through the Center’s McCracken Research Library, and a wide selection of Proctor’s bronze, marble, and plaster sculptures and paintings, drawings, and prints are presented within the Whitney Western Art Museum. These rich resources informed and inspired The Best of Proctor’s West project, an in-depth study of eleven of the artist’s most celebrated bronzes. Comprising a scholarly publication and a searchable online database, the project weds connoisseurship and science. Bronzes studied include Fawn (first and second models), Stalking Panther (multiple variations), Arab Stallion, Indian Warrior (large and small versions), Moose, Elk, Q Street Buffalo, Buckaroo (multiple variations), Pursued (1914 and 1928 versions), Buffalo Hunt, and On the War Path. A new, richly illustrated catalogue, The Best of Proctor’s West: An In-Depth Study of Eleven of Proctor’s Bronzes, contains extended interpretive essays by Peter H. Hassrick on each of the selected bronzes. Allison Rosenthal discusses recent scientific examinations of Proctor’s bronzes using X-ray florescence (XRF) spectrometry. Karen B. McWhorter adds an introduction about the Center’s Proctor Studio Collection and offers a brief biography of the artist. The online database complements and expands upon the publication.

The Best of Proctor’s West: An In-Depth Study of Eleven of Proctor’s Bronzes

Arts & Photography

Hassrick, Peter H.

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Buffalo Bill Center of the West

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is a fount of major collections of art from some of the most renowned painters and sculptors of the American West. Holdings of artworks by titans such as Frederic Remington and Charles Russell number in the hundreds. The painter Joseph Henry Sharp, while claiming less space on the walls of the Center’s Whitney Western Art Museum, is represented by a substantial number of works that reveal his joy and devotion to the West and to its indigenous people. The Center also owns a set of Sharp’s papers, an extensive archive gifted by the artist’s primary chronicler, Forrest Fenn of Santa Fe. Fenn also donated Sharp’s Montana cabin, the “Absarokee Hut,” to the Center, thus collectively making the museum a focal point for Sharp studies. This volume marks a fresh inspection of who Sharp was, how and where he was trained as a painter, why he selected the nation’s western Native population as a primary subject, what impact his imagery had on audiences across the continent, and how his production as a painter of what he referred to as the “real Americans” differed from that of his contemporary peers. Beyond the pages of this book, and in conjunction with its findings and insights about Sharp, the Center has produced an online catalogue of some 700 examples of the artist’s paintings held in public collections. The repositories of these works span the country from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles with an obvious wellspring held by institutions in the West and Midwest. Readers who avail themselves of this volume’s additional, electronic chapter will be rewarded with a vast and compelling compendium of Sharp’s treasured paintings from over fifty museums, foundations, and libraries around the country.

The Life and Art of Joseph Henry Sharp

History & Criticism

Old Faithful Geyser, Emerald Spring, the magnificent canyons and falls of the Yellowstone River—these and other sites, familiar to the millions of visitors who travel through Yellowstone National Park each year, have been an inspiration to generations of artists. Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and dozens of other artists have braved difficult conditions to capture the splendors of Yellowstone in many media, from delicate watercolors and pen-and-ink sketches to powerful oils and popular lithographs. They have portrayed the animals that lived there, the humans who passed through, and above all the remarkable features that have made Yellowstone a wonderland to so many artists and observers. From the moment of its inception in 1872 as the first national park in the world, Yellowstone National Park has been perceived as a vast visual spectacle. By the 1890s it was known as “the Nation’s Art Gallery.” Peter H. Hassrick traces the artistic history of the park from its earliest explorers to the present day in this new edition of Drawn to Yellowstone, a richly illustrated account of the artists who traveled to and were inspired by Yellowstone. Yellowstone is simultaneously an aesthetic experience and a potent force in America’s search for national identity. Visitors made comparisons between the castles of Europe and the gleaming spires of Yellowstone to prove that America, too, had its history and its grandeur. Like the waters pulsing from its geysers, from Yellowstone flows an artistic energy that at once captivates a nation and contributes to its philosophical and aesthetic history.

Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America's First National Park

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Buffalo Bill Center of the West publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Buffalo Bill Center of the West

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Buffalo Bill Center of the West publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Best of Proctor’s West: An In-Depth Study of Eleven of Proctor’s Bronzes

The Life and Art of Joseph Henry Sharp

Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America's First National Park