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The Potomac Corral is a local organization for people interested in the American West. It is one of a number of similar chapters in the loosely-knit society known as Westerners International.
The Potomac Corral is like a cross between a learned society and a Lions Club. Here, scholars, policy-makers, enthusiasts, and the merely curious meet on neutral ground and in mutual respect. An appreciation for the American West is, of course, their common denominator and shared passion.
The Potomac Corral has been one of the most productive and active corrals. Washington, D.C., has attracted distinguished experts on Western subjects to work in various federal agencies, academic institutions, museums, libraries, archives, and other institutes and businesses. Of course, the city has been home to many former residents of the West, and others who simply appreciate the American West and all that is associated with it. Indeed, it is probably the case that Washington, D.C., is the best place to study the West, east of the Mississippi.
The Trapper's Bride, by Alfred Jacob Miller (1850)
Alfred Jacob Miller is one of the canonical artists of the North American West. He was born and raised in Baltimore and studied art in Baltimore, Philadelphia, France, and Italy. He opened a studio in New Orleans in 1836, where he met Sir William Drummond Stewart, a Scottish nobleman and captain in the British Army. Stewart hired Miller to accompany him on an hunting expedition to the Rocky Mountains for the purposes of documenting Stewart's adventure. Miller produced sketches, watercolors, and oil paintings of their 1837 expedition. Many of Miller's renderings depict a world of dreamy, romanticized, adventurous, and timeless idyll—a world of breathtaking landscapes inhabited by Indians, mountain men, and exotic beasts of the American West. Especially important is that Miller was the only artist to witness a "rendezvous" of the Rocky Mountain fur traders.
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Next meeting of the Potomac Corral:
Please join us for
a dinner and presentation by
at the
2901 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, Virginia 22201
703.875.9663
(map)
Cost: $37 per person
Please RSVP by Tuesday, May 25, to either francis_flavin@potomac-corral.org or jan_earle@potomac-corral.org.
Click for more details....
Lisa Strong is the author of
Sentimental Journey:
the Art of Alfred Jacob Miller
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September 2009 News: The Potomac Corral won an award from Westerners International for its accomplishments in 2008. Corral member Mike Boothe won second place in the "Fred Olds Poetry Award" for outstanding contemporary cowboy poetry. His poem, "Ode to Four-Wheeler Wranglers," appeared in last year's issue of Corral Dust. Congratulations to everyone who helped make 2008 a successful and enjoyable year.
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Lecture: America's Dangerous Volcanoes. It has been thirty years since Mount Saint Helens reawakened, but what other volcanoes pose the threat of lava flows, toxic gases, volcanic ash, and mudflows? Bill Burton of the U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Hazards Program will discuss the efforts being made by the federal government to monitor volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, and Yellowstone for eruptive activity. Wednesday, September 1, 2010, from
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the
Rachel Carson Room, Main Interior Building, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C. Special Assistance – For those in need of special assistance (such as an interpreter for the hearing impaired) or inquiries regarding the handicapped entrance, please notify museum staff at (202) 208-4743 in advance of the program.
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Exhibition: Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction. Georgia O'Keeffe is one of canonical figures in 20th century American art. She is perhaps most famously associated with New Mexico and the American Southwest, where she resided in later life.
Included in the exhibition are more than 100 paintings, drawings, and watercolors by O'Keeffe, dating from 1915 to the late 1970s, and 12 photographic portraits of her by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. February 6 through May 9, 2010, at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., NW, Washington, DC.
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Exhibition by Potomac Corral Member: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, by Michelle Delaney. The exhibition is the result of a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. The exhibition opened on April 10, 2010 and will be on view until August 8, 2010. There are plans for the exhibition to travel back to the National Museum of American History this fall.
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Obituary: Wilma Mankiller, the woman to be elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in modern times, whose
leadership on social and financial issues made her tribe a national role model, died April 6, 2010, at
her home in Oklahoma. She was 64 years old. Wilma Mankiller led the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma from 1985 to 1995.
President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, and she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of
Fame in 1993. See the Washington Post's obituary for more information.
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Exhibition: Framing the West. Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840–1882) was a photographer for two of the most ambitious geographical surveys of the nineteenth century. He traversed the mountain and desert regions of the western United States under the command of Clarence King and Lt. George M. Wheeler for six seasons between 1867 and 1874. O'Sullivan developed a forthright and rigorous style in response to the landscapes of the American West, and returned to Washington, D.C. with hundreds of photographs that revealed an artist whose reach far surpassed the demands of practical documentation. February 12, 2010 - May 9, 2010 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
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Lecture: When Art Worked: Art, the New Deal, and Democracy. Roger Kennedy, former Director of the National Park Service, and Director Emeritus of the National Museum of American History, will discuss how the New Deal put the arts, including painting, music, theater, and architecture, to work and its influence on the development of the National Park Service. Wednesday, March 10, 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m., U.S. Department of the Interior Auditorium, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington, DC ( view map). Photo ID required. Please call please call museum staff at (202) 208-4743 for any further questions.
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Film Screenings: Reel Portraits: John Ford’s Frontier. John Ford’s films helped shape America’s memory and imagination of the West. Ford also helped create an indelible portrait of the American cowboy in the form of John Wayne. See the West—and westerns—anew, at the National Portrait Gallery with hosts Frank Goodyear and Francis Flavin.
- Friday, November 20, at 7:00 p.m.: Fort Apache (1948).
- Saturday, November 21, at 2:00 p.m.: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).
- Saturday, November 21, at 5:00 p.m.: The Searchers (1956).
The events are free and open to the public. The National Portrait Gallery Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, Eighth and G Streets, NW, Washington, DC.
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Lecture: Each week, a staff member of the National Portrait Gallery or a special guest speaker brings visitors face-to-face with a portrait by offering an insight into one person whose portrait hangs at the National Portrait Gallery. Join Department of the Interior historian Francis Flavin for a Face-to-Face gallery talk about Lakota social critic and public intellectual, Zitkala-Ša (Gertrude Bonnin). The lecture is free and open to the general public. Thursday, October 29, 2009, 6:00 – 6:30 p m. Meet at F Street Lobby.
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Lecture: Join Potomac Corral member Jill Jonnes for a PowerPoint talk and book signing followed by film (in English) "Sur les Traces de Gustave Eiffel." Her new book, Eiffel’s Tower, set in Belle Epoque Paris, tells the story of the tallest tower, the World’s Fair of 1889, art, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Indians, Edison, French esthetes, Americans in Paris, and the rise of colonial empire. The event will be at Letelier Theater, 3251 Prospect Street, NW, Georgetown, on Friday, September 18, at 6:30 p.m. The cost will be $12 for non-members of Alliance Française, and $8 for seniors. For reservations call (202) 234-7911. The event will be hosted by Alliance Française.
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Lecture: Join Erika Doss of the University of Notre Dame for a lecture "Indians, Corn, and the American West: Maynard Dixon’s New Deal Mural for the U.S. Department of the Interior." Doss will highlight the complexities surrounding government-funded art projects during the 1930s and discuss how American Artist Maynard Dixon negotiated with New Deal tastemakers in his depiction of modern American Indians and the American West. In 1937, the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture, a New Deal arts program, commissioned a two-panel mural for the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices in the Main Interior Building. Saturday, September 19, 2009, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. in the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum classroom, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C. Please bring a photo ID. Contact Diana Ziegler at (202) 208-4743 for further information.
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Corral News: Joseph Medicine Crow, former recipient of the Potomac Corral's Dykes Award, honored by President Obama. On Wednesday, August 12, 2009, President Obama bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Joseph Medicine Crow and 15 other luminaries. Joseph Medicine Crow is a member of the Crow Tribe of Montana. The Potomac Corral presented Medicine Crow with the Dykes Award in 2000 to recognize him for his outstanding contribution to Western affairs. Corral member Herman Viola worked with Medicine Crow to write Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond, a history of Joseph Medicine Crow's life.
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PBS Documentary: The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Ken Burns filmed this documentary over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales — from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska. The National Parks: America's Best Idea is nonetheless a story of people from every conceivable background — rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy. Coming to PBS September 27, 2009.
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Lecture: Documenting the American West - Edward Curtis's Contributions to American Indian Culture and Artistry. Edward Curtis's photographs are appreciated for their artistic merit and their ability to reveal the personality, traditions, and culture of the subject. Marian Hansson, Bureau of Indian Affairs Curator, will explore Curtis's work and how his photographs have contributed to Indian artistry, genealogical research, and legislation. Wednesday, August 5, 2009, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., at the Interior Museum Classroom at the Department of the Interior, 1849 C. St., NW, Washington, D.C. Be sure to bring a photo I.D.
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Lecture: Contemporary Landscape Photography and the Legacy of Ansel Adams. For the past four decades, landscape photography has attempted to negotiate the space between Ansel Adam's vision of an Arcadian wilderness and the details of the neighboring landscape. Toby Jurovics, Curator of Photography at the Smithsonian America Museum, relates how contemporary photography is driven by the same concern and affection for the American landscape. Saturday, June 20, 2009, 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m., at the Department of the Interior Museum, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington, D.C.
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Theater Performance: Adapted from the American classic by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber, GIANT is a daring new musical. Epic in vision and scope, swept with passion and violence, touched by humor and sorrow, Giant is the powerful story of a Texas rancher and his Virginia-born wife as they face increasing challenges in their marriage and family in an ever-changing American landscape. Through May 31, 2009, at the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia.
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