American Heritage Center
Centennial Complex
2111 Willet Drive
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-4114
Email: ahcref@uwyo.edu
The Italian word for cowboy is buttero, and like the English term it refers to horse-riding figures who herd cattle and horses on horseback. They ride the wide Maremma—a marshy grassland in Italy north of Rome along the western coast of Tuscany. The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming opened a photographic exhibit on December 4 featuring the butteri (plural) and their horse and cattle culture called “Italy’s Legendary Cowboys of the Maremma.”
The exhibit is the creation of Gabrielle Saveri and draws upon her photographic exploration of the buttero culture in Tuscany. It features many butteri, men and women, along with their distinctive clothing, horsemanship and herding skills, and horse accoutrements.
While the term “Italy’s Cowboys” may remind many Americans of the “spaghetti westerns” of the 1960s, which imitated American western movies but were filmed in Italy by Italian directors, the buttero way of life comprises an indigenous Italian culture. Its heyday was the nineteenth century, but its origins and name go back 2000 years to the time of the Roman Empire. Buttero clothing and hats as well as the horse tack they use originated within Italy and owe nothing to popular influence from the American West.
The exhibit area at the American Heritage Center (“under the cone”) is open from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. “Italy’s Legendary Cowboys of the Maremma” runs from December 4, 2024 to April 20, 2025.
“Painted for Illustration: Paintings and Published Western Art from the Collection of Naoma Tate” is now on display at the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center (AHC). The exhibition -- about Western art in its original and published forms -- is on display through Tuesday, April 15.
Curated by the Toppan Rare Books Library, the exhibition highlights 11 original paintings from the collection of Naoma Tate along with the books and magazines in which the illustrations appeared.
Artworks include W.H.D. Koerner’s “Proud Sherriff,” which appeared in 1932 as an illustration for a serialized story in issues of The Saturday Evening Post. William Herbert Dunton’s “Venters and Bess” illustrated in the 1921 edition of Zane Grey’s Western novel “Riders of the Purple Sage.”
Several artists whose paintings are featured also were notable for their contributions outside of the Western genre. These include the works of painters Harvey Dunn and Dean Cornwell creating wartime propaganda, as well as Frank C. McCarthy’s works illustrating movie posters, such as the “The Great Escape” and “Station Six Sahara.”
Tate’s generosity has made the AHC’s exhibition possible, AHC Director Paul Flesher says.
“My earliest fascination with art was around the collections of 19th century art. I loved good storytelling,” Tate says. “To be able to convey a narrative in a single image takes imagination and considerable trained talent.”
Tate looked for the same skill in storytelling when she began to collect Western art.
“These paintings were done quickly, usually on a deadline, and they have an intuitive, expressive quality,” Tate adds. “I love the immediacy of the narrative.”
The “Painted for Illustration” exhibition gives visitors a firsthand view into the process of creating paintings to be used in published illustrations. Flesher adds that visitors also can explore interesting books and magazines from the Toppan Rare Books Library extensive collections in which the illustrations appeared and learn about the interplay between art of the Western genre and its use in publications.
“Being able to see full-size paintings alongside the illustrations in the short stories and books adds dimension to the stories,” Toppan Library Curator Mary Beth Brown says. “The way the writers, the painters and their works all connect to one another shows the small size of the publishing world of popular Western fiction in the early 20th century.”
UW AHC’s exhibition halls are open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday. All exhibitions are free and open to the public.
The American Heritage Center is excited to host Through the Lens: The Life & Legacy of Richard Throssel. The exhibition features photographs from the collection of the American Heritage Center (AHC) and was developed by the Western Heritage Center in Billings, Montana.
Richard Throssel spent a decade working with the Crow Indians in Montana at the start of the last century and photographing them. This exhibit about his life highlights his unique visual perspective on the tribe—telling their story from the perspective of an insider.
Born in 1882 in Washington state, Richard Throssel came to southern Montana in 1900 and soon began working at the Crow Indian reservation along the Wyoming/Montana border. In 1905, he took up photography and in 1906 the Crow adopted him into the tribe.
Throssel’s tribal membership gave him access to tribal activities and to people that no other photographer had at the time for the Crows or any other tribe. He took more than 2000 photographs during his association with the Crows, before and after moving to Billings, MT.
The exhibit tells Throssel’s story and how his work is now recognized as an important treasure trove of visual information about the Crows and other tribes as they transitioned from a horse-based nomadic culture to a more settled life on the reservation at the start of the twentieth century.
The exhibit resulted from an informal partnership between the American Heritage Center in Laramie at University of Wyoming and the Western Heritage Center in Billings, MT. The exhibit was curated by Lauren Hunley of the Western Heritage Center from photographs and negatives preserved in the AHC. Furthermore, several members of the Crow tribe participated in the exhibit’s design and photograph selection.
The exhibit shares the story of Richard Throssel and how his photographs of Apsaalooke (Crow), Tsit-tsit-tsa (Northern Cheyenne), and Lakota (Sioux) people provided agency and insight to indigenous cultures in transition. Lauren Hunley, Community Historian of the Western Heritage Center, explains, “As a Metis man of Cree and English heritage, Throssel’s Native ancestry gave him unique entrance and perspective into Native life. While other photographers are photographing white ideals of romanticized indigenous life, Throssel is working with his subjects to show their life as they wanted to be depicted.”
AHC Director Paul Flesher states, “The AHC is pleased that the Western Historical Center decided to feature the photographs of Richard Throssel held here. We are excited to be the first location of the exhibit after it finished its run in Billings.”
The exhibit is open 9-5, five days a week. It runs from January 20 to August 29, 2025, at the UW’s American Heritage Center, 2111 Willet Drive, Laramie, WY. For more information, visit https://www.uwyo.edu/ahc/exhibits.html or send an email to AHCRef@uwyo.edu.
The American Heritage Center is featuring an photographic exhibit about women making their place in the West. Curated by Grace Derby, a student intern at the American Heritage Center, the exhibit “Western Women: What Makes a Cowgirl?” takes a look at seven different women from the Center’s collections and shows how they created their own western way of life.
According to curator Grace Derby, “The exhibit asks the question of what a cowgirl is and how these women fulfilled that role. Women worked on ranches and cattle drives, in the rodeos and shows, at forts and even alongside outlaws.”
AHC Director Paul Flesher observes, “Derby’s exhibit shows that like the cowboys, what was initially the hard-driven life of cowgirls became idealized and stereotyped through performance in western shows, rodeos and cinema.”
American Heritage Center exhibits are open from 9am-5pm Monday through Friday. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. The exhibit will run in the Center’s public exhibition space until April 22, 2025.
The American Heritage Center’s George A. Rentschler Room is home to significant western paintings, including thirteen by Henry Farny and one by Frederic Remington. These paintings appear as they did in the library of Mr. Rentschler, a New York City businessman and western enthusiast.
Henry Farny (1847-1916)
After studying in Rome, Dusseldorf and Munich as a young man, Farny settled in Cincinnati. In 1881, he began traveling into the American West, including Wyoming. During his travels, Farny sketched, took photographs and collected Indian artifacts and photographs. Returning to his Cincinnati studio, Farny worked from his own illustrations and memory, relied on his collection of artifacts, and occasionally employed live models to create his unique style of Western art.
Despite this method of production, Farny’s Indian paintings are considered some of the most accurate of the genre. His paintings of Native Americans were highly sought after during Farny’s lifetime, although his work disappeared into near obscurity after his death. Collectors rediscovered Farny in the 1960s because of increasing interest in the “true West.”
Frederic Remington (1861-1909)
Frederic Remington studied art at Yale University and took his first trip into the American West in 1881, the same year as Farny. Although a failed businessman, he became famous as an illustrator of the West. His first full-page cover artwork appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1886 when he was just 25.
In the 1890s, he became a favorite of the American cavalry in the West, especially the troops led by General Nelson Miles. His numerous paintings of soldiers at this this time often used a monochromatic palate, which gave a sense of realistic, almost photographic, quality. The Rentschler Remington painting belongs to this period.
| Please note: The Alfred Jacob Miller paintings are presently on loan to the exhibit, “Alfred Jacob Miller: Revisiting the Rendezvous—in Scotland and Today.” The exhibit will be at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY)in 2023 and at the Eiteljorg Museum (Indianapolis) in 2024. Please expect them to return home to the American Heritage Center May 1, 2025. |
The Alfred Jacob Miller paintings from the Everett D. Graff family and Robert C. Graff art collections appear on permanent display in the American Heritage Center’s new Gallery One. A young American artist, Miller was commissioned by a Scottish noble, William Drummond Stewart, to document his expedition from the Missouri frontier to the 1837 Green River Rendezvous near modern Pinedale Wyoming. During the six-month journey with Stewart and the American Fur Company, Miller made more than 200 watercolor sketches. He used these sketches as the basis for large oil paintings he painted to hang in Stewart’s Murthly Castle in Scotland. Miller was the first European American artist to capture the interior of the Rocky Mountains. Some of the Murthly Castle paintings are now at the American Heritage Center.
The American Heritage Center is pleased to work with the UW Foundation to curate photograph and image exhibits for the Gateway Center. Three exhibits are now on display.
As the archives of the University of Wyoming, the American Heritage Center (AHC), holds numerous collections from UW departments, professors, presidents, students, and alumni. Many of these folks have had considerable artistic talent they’ve often used to promote and shine a light on all the culture, classes, and opportunities UW has to offer.
This exhibit features items from the University of Wyoming’s University Relations & Media Services records (collection # 512001) held at the AHC. The collection contains publications of various kinds dating from 1868 to 2000. In this exhibit, you’ll see covers of student journals, class schedules, distance education, magazines, and other publications where people in the UW community put their brushes, pencils, carving tools, and cameras to work for these fantastic covers.
Enjoy this step back in time at UW!
The early and mid-20th century in Wyoming saw women playing an active and essential role in both ranch life and rodeo culture. These images depict the grit, strength, and independence of cowgirls who worked the land, managed livestock, and competed in rodeo events like Cheyenne Frontier Days.
The largest image in this exhibit features Clara Raab Toppan. Raised in Laramie, Clara graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1931 with an accounting degree and became Wyoming’s first female certified public accountant in 1945. She went on to work at Grand Teton National Park, work her husband’s family ranch outside the park, and establish a private accounting practice in Jackson. She was later honored as a distinguished alumna of the University of Wyoming and Governor Mike Sullivan declared June 22, 1990, as Clara Raab Toppan Day. Clara was instrumental in founding the Toppan Rare Books Library at the American Heritage Center.
All images are from the J.S. Palen Collection (#10472), the Clara and Frederick Toppan papers (#6802), and other collections housed at the American Heritage Center.
Carl W. Stalling (1891-1972) was an American composer whose work in film, music, and animation helped push the boundaries of what was possible with cartoons and short films in the 20th century. His work scoring music for various Walt Disney productions and the Warner Brothers' classic cartoon, Looney Tunes, helped solidify his mark on animation and music history.
Carl Stalling was also a noted innovator in the motion picture industry, with his invention of the tick method, a film technique used as standard practice to combine scored music with animated scenes.
The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming is proud to feature selected materials from the Carl Stalling papers (#5725). This collection contains original music scores and cue sheets from Stalling’s most famous works, other commercial music, photos of celebrities, correspondence, and other material related to the motion picture industry. In addition, the collection features original hand-drawn sketches from Ub Iwerks, the original artist of Mickey Mouse and other Silly Symphonies shorts, such as “The Skeleton Dance.”
The historical significance and material content within the Carl Stalling papers make it a favorite of many researchers, employees, and visitors of the American Heritage Center.
American Heritage Center
Centennial Complex
2111 Willet Drive
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-4114
Email: ahcref@uwyo.edu