A rich compendium of Western art by women, this book also contains essays which examine the many economic, social, and political forces that have shaped the art over years of pivotal change. The women profiled played an important role in gaining the acceptance of women as men's peers in artistic communities. Their independent spirit resonates in studios and galleries throughout the country today. Photos.

This encyclopedia is a biographical dictionary of some 1,000 women artists of the American West. The product of a twenty-year, coast-to-coast research project by authors Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, it offers accurate, concise introductions to women painters, graphic artists, and sculptors, all of whom achieved recognition as depictors of Western subjects between the 1840s and 1980. Their styles range from representationalism to early modernism, while their works depict everything from bold landscapes and scenes of intensive action to studies of Native Americans, pioneers, ranchers, farmers, wildlife, and flora. Each entry in the encyclopedia features the salient facts of the artist's life and career, with attention to her work with Western subject matter. Many of the entries also contain a selected list of the artist's exhibitions, current locations of her work in public collections, pertinent references, and a black-and-white example of her work. An overview of the history of women in western art complements the biographical entries.

Profiles more than 150 women artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the American West, offers fifteen interpretive essays, and includes nearly three hundred reproductions of their works.

Describes changes in how the West has been seen, from a male-dominated frontier, to a region with a powerful sense of place, to a modern center of both genders, ethnic groups, and environmental interests

Dissects and studies twenty-one classic Western paintings, and analyzes the lives and styles of the artists, including Remington, O'Keefe, and Catlin.

- Presents a selection of works in the Petrie Institute of Western American Art collectionThis volume collects a selection of works of art produced in the western United States belonging to the collection of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art housed in the Denver Art Museum. This collection is one of the richest and most substantial in the world on this subject, thanks to its outstanding bronze sculptures, early modern works, and contributions from the artistic communities of Taos and Santa Fe. The central theme of the book is the period stretching from the beginning of the 19th century to the mid-20th century. More than 200 pages of portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, and depictions of a still-intact wilderness make evident the diversity of the collection. The narrative proceeds chronologically, presenting early luminaries such as Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, and Charles M. Russell; Robert Henri and the artists of the TAO community; and prominent modernist painters, including Maynard Dixon, Marsden Hartley, and Raymond Jonson. Numerous illustrations and expert interpretations chronicle the artistic, cultural, and identarian climate in the western United States during this period. A prologue by historian Dan Flores and an epilogue by art historian Erika Doss describe the vaster context in which to view this rich history of American art.

More than 1,700 alphabetically arranged entries provide information about the lives and work of painters, illustrators, and sculptors who depicted the American West through their art.

Brief biographies of five early American painters including Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and John Trumbull.

Ancient ecstasies -- Visualizing Lewis and Clark and the meaning of the West -- The eye and the heart in George Catlin's West -- Karl Bodmer's gift -- Alfred Jacob Miller's new Western American -- Jesus and animus beneath the Bitterroots -- An entire Heaven and an entire Earth : audubon on the Missouri -- Albert Bierstadt and the mountains of Mars -- Thomas Moran's Rocky Mountain romance -- Coming to terms with the Little Bighorn -- Altitude equals beatitude : William Henry Jackson and the Northern Rockies -- L.A. Huffman and the frontier disconnect -- Catching shadows in the northern West -- Through Indian eyes : the Crows and Richard Throssel -- Evelyn Cameron's time machine -- Carl Rungius and the son of wild folk -- Loving the West, hating the West, painting the West : the troubled times of Fra Dana -- Frederic Remington's Kiss of death -- Maynard and Montana -- Winold Reiss's beautiful Blackfeet -- Motion and poetry -- The bear in the mirror -- Emily Carr and the Great Mother -- The ripples beyond Ansel Adams -- In the end, what was Charlie Russell trying to tell us?

Offering a fresh perspective on the influence of the American southwest--and particularly West Texas--on the New York art world of the 1950s, Three Women Artists: Expanding Abstract Expressionism in the American West aims to establish the significance of itinerant teaching and western travel as a strategic choice for women artists associated with traditional centers of artistic authority and population in the eastern United States. The book is focused on three artists: Elaine de Kooning, Jeanne Reynal, and Louise Nevelson. In their travels to and work in the High Plains, they were inspired to innovate their abstract styles and introduce new critical dialogues through their work. These women traveled west for the same reason artists often travel to new places: they found paid work, markets, patrons, and friends. This Middle American context offers us a "decentered" modernism--demanding that we look beyond our received truths about Abstract Expressionism. Authors Amy Von Lintel and Bonnie Roos demonstrate that these women's New York avant-garde, abstract styles were attractive to Panhandle-area ranchers, bankers, and aspiring art students. Perhaps as importantly, they show that these artists' aesthetics evolved in light of their regional experiences. Offering their work as a supplement and corrective to the frameworks of patriarchal, East Coast ethnocentrism, Von Lintel and Roos make the case for Texas as influential in the national art scene of the latter half of the twentieth century.