Western Art: Is it or isn't it?

Is it, or isn’t it?

Western art.

My Fall 2025 travels have included the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth and the Saint Louis Art Museum. I’m always curious to see what “Western” artworks and artists are on display at non-Western specific art museums.

With its foundational collection of C.M. Russell and Frederic Remington sculptures and paintings, the Amon Carter has one of the finest collections of Western art in the country, even though its focus expands to include American art broadly.

At both institutions, I found myself especially intrigued by works occupying the edges of Western art. If Russell and Remington occupy Western art’s bullseye, what about these paintings? Are they or aren’t they?

Western art.

Some definitely are, despite not initially looking like it. Some definitely aren’t, despite initially looking like it. Other’s classification will depend upon your perspective. Western art often lies in the eye of the beholder.

Enjoy these Western art brain teasers and ask yourself “are they” or “aren’t they” before reading my descriptions.

Thomas Hart Benton, 'Cradling Wheat,' 1938.

Our first painting (above) comes from the Saint Louis Art Museum; Thomas Hart Benton’s (1889-1975) Cradling Wheat (1938). An easy one to start with. Depicted are settlers bringing in the wheat harvest – by hand. An iconic Western scene. Working the land. The rolling hills seem to indicate Kansas or Nebraska, perhaps Benton’s native Missouri.

WRONG!

Wall text for the painting includes Benton’s commentary on the piece describing the scene as coming from East Tennessee!

This one fooled me. I thought for sure it was Western. It sure looks Western.

Looks can be deceiving.

To wit, what does this next painting, (below) look like?

That’s right, it’s a door, and it’s Western art all the way.

When is a door Western art?

When it’s Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Patio Door (1955) at the Amon Carter.

The door shown is from O’Keeffe’s adobe style Spanish Colonial home in Abiquiu, NM. That’s as Western as it gets.

The painting is extraordinarily modern, geometric, and spare – attributes not always associated with Western art – but in the hands of O’Keeffe, living and painting New Mexico, the elements combine for an architectural painting every bit as Western as a cattle drive.

Let’s move on to another super-modern, geometric painting, this one also with architectural elements, but a cityscape rather than O’Keeffe’s country home.

Wayne Thiebaud, 'Down Penn. St.,' 1977.

An artist born in the West painting a scene from the West has to be Western art, doesn’t it?

What about Wayne Thiebaud’s (1920-2021) Down Penn. St. (1977) shown here from a special exhibition at the Amon Carter?

Thiebaud was born in Arizona, grew up in Southern California, studied in Northern California, and was a strong presence on the California art scene for 50-plus years. This painting depicts a street in San Francisco.

That checks all the boxes for “Western” art even though this painting hardly calls to mind the horses and mountain or desert landscapes most closely associated with Western art conventions. I love finding gems like this that force me – force us – to expand the boundaries of “Western” art.

This beautiful little painting, about the size of notebook paper, was done in preparation for a large painting completed the following year. What differences can you spot between this first draft and the finished masterpiece, executed at 4 feet by 3 feet and sold for over $1,000,000?

Martin Wong, 'Chinatown Dragon,' 1993.

If an artist was born in the West, lived in the West, painted Western scenes, and died in the West, how can that artist and his artwork be excluded from Western art? Martin Wong (1946-1999) was born in Portland, grew up in San Francisco, went to college at Cal State Poly in Humboldt – northern California – and then returned to live in San Francisco before heading off to New York.

Wong’s Chinatown Dragon (1993) is one of the most striking paintings I’ve seen this year. It’s bursting with color and life and light and energy – roughly 6 feet tall.

The painting appears in “East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art,” an exhibition highlighting the influence of artists with ancestry across the Pacific Ocean on American art.

Wong and his painting are both Eastern and Western. Definitely Western.

Don’t think so?

For anyone believing Chinatown Dragon isn’t Western art, how would you make that argument? How would you argue that a Western born artist who spent much of his life in the West and painted this iconic Western scene isn’t Western art? Because his ancestry is Chinese? No argument founded on bigotry holds up with me.

Western art isn’t the exclusive domain of white or Anglo artists, or Native artists. Asian Americans were and are essential to the Western experience and their interpretations of the region through artwork, therefore, necessarily must be included to achieve a fully formed, three-dimensional, accurate portrayal of the West.

That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what I want.

Plus, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, how could any lover of Western art not want artwork of this caliber as part of our “club?” If “Western” art wants to be as big and open and welcoming and interesting as possible, Chinatown Dragon and artists like Wong have to be included; if it doesn’t, I want no part of it.

Up next, a traditional Western painting from a most untraditional Western painter.

Jackson Pollock, 'Camp with Oil Rig,' 1930-33.

A Texas oil rig and landscape. As Western as it gets.

The artist: Jackson Pollock (1912-1956).

Pollock is never thought of as a “Western” artist, and he’s not. Not exclusively, anyway. He defined New York Abstract Expressionism. However, Pollock was born in Wyoming and grew up in Arizona and California. Navajo sand painting influenced him greatly. That’s apparent in his AbEx work which he came to paint on the floor, just like the sand painters. Hart Benton, a Western-ish painter, was his mentor.

Pollock wasn’t a Western artist, but he produced Western paintings like this one, Camp with Oil Rig (1930-33), on view in a separate special exhibition at the Amon Carter. No rule – thankfully – requires artists work exclusively in one style. O’Keeffe became a Western artist who was also distinguished by her fantastic earlier depictions of New York City skyscrapers. Marsden Hartley painted New Mexico as effectively as he did Maine.

Hart Benton, O’Keeffe, Thiebaud, Pollock, Hartley, are they “Western” artists? No. Yes in the case of O’Keeffe, if you ask me. Sometimes.

Each are essential to American Art, to 20^th century Modernism; as devotees of Western art, why would we want to exclude anyone from our club, let along these titans, even if they aren’t exclusive to our club? I want the Western art “tent” to include as many artists and artworks and admirers as possible. To be as large and diverse and complex as the region itself.

George Grammer, 'Offshore,' 1953.

While we’re on the subject of fossil fuel infrastructure, what about this oil rig nocturne Offshore (1953) by George Grammer (1928-2019)? A gorgeous, modern, almost Piet Mondrian-esq painting at the Amon Carter.

I’ve never seen anything like it in the Western genre. The scene is Galveston Bay. I love it visually; I loathe its subject matter. Beauty in ugliness. I turned away in disgust from this painting and returned to its artistic beauty multiple times. Here, I also see pelicans covered in oil and pollution choked skies. Environmental ruin is inseparable from fossil fuel extraction.

Does this painting celebrate that? It doesn’t not celebrate it.

Similarly, what about Charles Sheeler’s (1883-1965) Conversation – Sky and Earth (1940) below?

Charles Sheeler, 'Conversation - Sky and Earth,' 1940.

This is Hoover Dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River on the border between Arizona and Nevada. If Sheeler had chosen to go 10 miles up river and simply paint the Canyon in its natural condition, it would unquestionably be “Western.”

This painting – so modern, so linear and angular and geometric – challenges conventions of Western art. The scene is ugly. Concrete, power lines. Progress? Only if damming rivers, destroying habitat, and excluding Indigenous people from the decision is considered progress. All of that was true across the West – continues to be true. Sadly.

This is undoubtably Western art, and Western art, just like the West, isn’t always pretty. Another picture at the Amon Carter I was equal parts disgusted by and drawn to. That’s a good painting.

John Rogers Cox, 'Cloud Trails,' 1944. 

One last Western art brain teaser. Another wheat field landscape at the Saint Louis Art Museum, this one Cloud Trails (1944) by John Rogers Cox (1915-1990).

What do you think?

I think “Western,” but perhaps that’s my bias coming from a Western art background. Big sky. Old barn. Wheat field. The advertisements on the side of the barn don’t give away the scene’s location. Benton’s wheat field taught us a lesson about how looks can be deceiving.

Cox was born in Indiana and died in Kentucky. Those areas had vast wheat fields, too. Perhaps the painting is not Western. The museum’s wall label gives no hints as to the image’s location.

This painting possesses a mysterious quality all around. The darkened horizon. The moon. The sparse, unpopulated landscape.

It’s likely a deeper dive into the artist’s biography would reveal at least whether the scene is Western or not, even if an exact location can’t be pinpointed. I prefer leaving it here. Not knowing. Art isn’t science. Rarely is there one right answer. Sometimes, there isn’t even an answer.

I like that.