1:00 – 2:00 p.m. Meets at Canyon Princess (cougar sculpture in West Hallway) Docents offer one-hour tours of the Museum’s fall exhibitions. Discover the vibrantly colored and sculpted pottery that was a dominate fixture of Native American daily life and are today viewed as one of the most notable Native American art forms in Colors of Clay. Travel the world and through time in Passport and see unexpected pieces (pharaohs, knights, James Bond) from many Western artists. Wrap up with…
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December 2019
Drop by and participate in family-friendly activities. Create a different make-and-take craft each day. No reservations required and activities are available while supplies last. Free with Museum admission. For more information, visit nationalcowboymuseum.org/kids. Holiday Card Shop December 23 and 29, 2019 Create your own special card, gift tag or thank you note from a variety of art materials. Santa’s Scavenger Hunt December 24 and 31, 2019 The elves have hidden clues around the Museum! Explore the galleries and dig a…
Find out moreJanuary 2020
Horses have long been an important element of Western lifestyles. Celebrate these majestic animals with horse-related crafts, including a horseshoe picture frame, storytelling and a showing of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.
Find out moreFrom Albert Bierstadt’s glowing landscape Emigrants Crossing the Plains to pieces by Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, see some of the finest Western art in the country. View ethnographic material from Native Americans and mountain men, and learn about frontier military life. Round out the tour with a look at the evolution of the working cowboy, from the range to their portrayal in film and pop culture. Walk away with a better understanding of the diverse cultures that have shaped…
Find out moreIn conjunction with the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing, January’s featured Read the West Book Club selection is the American classic The Grapes of Wrath. Published in 1939 by John Steinbeck, it evokes the harshness of the Great Depression and arouses sympathy for the struggles of migrant farmworkers. The story traces the migration of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family to California and their subsequent hardships. Read the West Book Club meets in January, February and March; attend one or…
Find out moreOn the second Sunday of the month, explore your creative side, practice different techniques and skills and be inspired by the artwork in the galleries and gardens. Borrow drawing materials from the Visitor Services desk in the Museum lobby (while supplies last) or bring your own! Gather with art lovers to enjoy an afternoon of drawing and learning with other artists. Free to Museum members or with Museum admission.
Find out moreFebruary 2020
One day to celebrate love is not enough! Visit the Museum any time from February 1 – 14 and show your love for your favorite piece of art or artifact. Pick up a heart at the Visitor Services desk, leave it by your selection and share on social media using #MyWest and #HeartsForArt. While visiting, pick up the “Find the Love” guide, a selection of art from the Museum’s collection that speaks of love. Free to Museum members or with…
Find out moreFebruary 1 Kids Take Over the Cowboy: Pinch Pots 10:00 a.m. – Noon Lincoln Hallway Pinch pots are both beautiful and useful. Learn the fun pottery technique “pinching” while creating a pot of your own. Caddo potter Chase Earles will discuss the process of harvesting and processing clay, and demonstrate different pottery techniques. Try your hand at pottery puzzles, create your own pottery design, enjoy storytelling and a showing of the claymation film, Chicken Run. Free for members or with…
Find out moreIn conjunction with the exhibition Two Grits – A Peek Behind the Eyepatch, and in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1969 film True Grit and the 10th anniversary of 2010 remake, the Read the West Book Club selection is Charles Portis’ classic novel True Grit. Read the West Book Club meets in January, February and March; attend one or all three. Books available for purchase in The Museum Store (15% discount for Museum members). Refreshments provided. $9, $6…
Find out moreOn the second Sunday of the month, explore your creative side, practice different techniques and skills and be inspired by the artwork in the galleries and gardens. Borrow drawing materials from the Visitor Services desk in the Museum lobby (while supplies last) or bring your own! Gather with art lovers to enjoy an afternoon of drawing and learning with other artists. Free to Museum members or with Museum admission.
Find out moreIt’s freezing outside, so come play inside the Museum! Enjoy complimentary s’more lattes for adults and hot cocoa for children in the saloon area of Prosperity Junction, the Museum’s indoor 19th-century boomtown! Participants can also: Try a virtual reality (VR) headset and experience the Museum’s temporary Dorothea Lange exhibition in a new way Make a soapbox car with your child Build a snowman indoors together Participate in a special story time Get a sneak peek of Liichokoshkomo,’ the Museum’s…
Find out moreGuests enjoy a dinner of comfort foods inspired by Route 66 and prepared by The Petroleum Club of Oklahoma City while watching The Grapes of Wrath. Prohibition not enforced (cash bar available). Following the film, spend exclusive time in the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing. As relatively inexpensive means of entertainment, movie attendance soared during the Great Depression. An unflinching adaptation of John Steinbeck’s controversial, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an Oklahoma farm family’s struggle for survival in tough times,…
Find out moreIn conjunction with the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association (TCAA), this workshop will address aspects of rawhide braiding. Students will focus on round, flat and square braiding techniques, with and without cores. String size and quantity as it relates to the core, and string cutting, will also will be addressed. This workshop is suitable for those with an understanding of braiding and familiarity with basic techniques as well as advanced braiders. Instructor: Nate Wald has been braiding for 30 years, was…
Find out moreWind down from the stresses of the day with this fun, one-night painting event! Visit the Museum for a painting class under instruction of Wine & Palette. In conjunction with Warhol and the West, create your own Warhol-inspired canvas painting. $45; $40 for Museum members. All supplies provided, including light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. Reservations required by February 25; to register click here.
Find out moreMarch 2020
Join Seth Hopkins, Executive Director, Booth Western Art Museum, as he explores Warhol and the West and the range of Western imagery Warhol produced. New scholarship will examine how Warhol’s Western work merges the artist’s ubiquitous portrayal of celebrities with his interest in cowboys, American Indians and other Western motifs. His work in the Western genre is immediately recognizable, impressive, daring, inspirational and sometimes confrontational. This body of work furthers our understanding of how the American West infiltrates the public’s…
Find out morePhotographer Dorothea Lange captured images of Americans, including many Oklahomans, as they struggled through the Great Depression. Listen to stories about her life and work at 10:15 a.m. and 11:15 a.m., create Depression-era toys including a rag doll and mini soapbox car, partake in a derby down the Museum hallway and sample food. Wrap up with a showing of Kit Kitteridge: An American Girl. Free for Museum members or with Museum admission. Available while supplies last.
Find out moreOn the second Sunday of the month, explore your creative side, practice different techniques and skills and be inspired by the artwork in the galleries and gardens. Borrow drawing materials from the Visitor Services desk in the Museum lobby (while supplies last) or bring your own! Gather with art lovers to enjoy an afternoon of drawing and learning with other artists. Free for Museum members or with Museum admission.
Find out moreWith hardship and suffering as consistent areas of focus throughout her career, Dorothea Lange created arresting portraits with the aim of sparking reform. Join Drew Heath Johnson, Curator of Photography and Visual Culture, Oakland Museum of California, as he examines the central theme of Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing; the power of Lange’s photography to sway people’s minds and spur them to action.
Find out moreDrop by and participate in family-friendly activities. Create a different make-and-take craft each day. No reservations required and activities are available while supplies last. Free with Museum admission. For more information, visit nationalcowboymuseum.org/kids. March 16 Andy Warhol-Inspired Pop Art March 17 Western Landscape Art March 18 Spring Beadwork March 19 Hands-On Clay March 20 Andy Warhol-Inspired Pop Art
Find out moreAuthor and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Anne Whiston Spirn will present photographs of the American West in 1939 by the great American photographer Dorothea Lange. Lange’s images of squatter camps, beleaguered farmers and stark landscapes are stunning, and her captions – which range from simple explanations to historical notes and biographical sketches – add unexpected depth, bringing her subjects and their struggle unforgettably to life, often in their own words. Bring your lunch or purchase one at The Museum…
Find out moreEnjoy the first in John Ford’s “cavalry trilogy.” When arrogant and stubborn Civil War hero Lt. Col. Owen Thursday (played by Henry Fonda) arrives in Arizona with his daughter, Philadelphia (Shirley Temple), to assume command of the Fort Apache outpost, he clashes with levelheaded Capt. Kirby York (John Wayne). Viewing the local Native Americans through an ignorantly negative lens, Thursday is determined to engage them in battle for his own glory, despite the warnings of York — an act of…
Find out morePresented by Sally Stein, revisit the great photographic career of Dorothea Lange by offering a new perspective on the making of “Migrant Mother,” her most famous Depression-era image, and its changing reception over the last eight decades. Stein is Professor Emerita of Art History & Film and Media Studies at University of California, Irvine, and author of the essay “Peculiar Grace: Dorothea Lange and the Testimony of the Body,” published in Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life. Bring your lunch or…
Find out moreEnjoy an evening of fun! Paint an Andy Warhol-inspired canvas and explore Prosperity Junction on a flashlight tour. Bring your pillows and blankets and curl up for a showing of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Popcorn provided! An adult must accompany children. $35 per child for ages 4 and up, $20 per adult. Register Here
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