Washington, DC, is home to some of the nation's finest art depicting the American West |
Listed below are events sponsored by the Potomac Corral of Westerners International, along with other local events relating to the American West:
WHEN: |
Friday, December 18, 2009, at 12:00 p.m. |
WHERE: |
Cosmos Club,
Member’s Dining Room
2121 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Between Q Street and Florida Avenue
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: (202) 387-7783
Map: Click here
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Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California (1865)
by Albert Bierstadt
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PROGRAM: |
Lunch; Corral business; book auction; presentation of the 2009 Dykes Award; presentation on the American West. You are welcome to invite guests. |
PRESENTATION: |
“A Western Historian’s Journey,” by Michael J. Brodhead, Ph.D. Dr.Brodhead will speak about his origins and education, positions that he has held, his research interests, the major influences and persons to which and whom he feels he is professionally indebted, and his reflections on the current status of Western history. |
SPEAKER &
WINNER
OF THE
2009 DYKES
AWARD
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Michael J. Brodhead, Ph.D. is this year's winner of the Potomac Corral Dykes Award. Dr. Brodhead is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Nevada, Reno. Following retirement from the university he served five years as an archivist at the Kansas City branch of the National Archives and Records Administration. He then worked two years as an archivist for the Nevada State Library and Archives, and spent a year as an archivist at the Department of Special Collections, University of Nevada, Reno. Since 2002 he has served as an historian for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers History Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Dr. Brodhead received a bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Kansas and earned a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Minnesota. He enjoys a distinguished reputation in the field of American Western history.
His dozens of publications include: Persevering Populist: The Life of Frank Doster (University of Nevada Press, 1969); Brushwork Diary: Watercolors of Early Nevada, with James McCormick, illustrated by Walter S. Long (University of Nevada Press, 1991); David J Brewer: The Life of a Supreme Court Justice, 1837-1910 (Southern Illinois University Press, 1994); Isaac C. Parker: Federal Justice on the Frontier (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003); Elliott Coues: Naturalist and Frontier Historian, with Paul Russell Cutright (Urbana: Univesity of Illinois Press, 2001).
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METRORAIL: |
Red Line, Dupont Circle Metro Stop. (The Cosmos Club is one block west of the Q Street exit of the Dupont Circle Metro Station. The Cosmos Club is on Massachusetts Avenue between 21st and 22nd Street, where Florida Avenue, Q Street, and Massachusetts Avenue come together.) |
METROBUS: |
Routes D1, D2, D3, D6, G2, H1, L1, L4, possibly others. |
PARKING: |
On premises for $6.00 or on nearby streets in metered and unmetered spots. Also paid lots off Dupont Circle, next to PNC Bank and under the Books-A-Million Building.
The Cosmos Club has two parking lots. The Rear Valet Lot is located behind the Club and is accessed by turning onto Hillyer Court located off Florida Avenue. This lot has parking attendants available to assist guests with parking, including getting cars in and out of tight spaces if needed. The parking attendants, if requested, will also provide additional assistance to persons with disabilities in parking the vehicle or providing a wheelchair. As you enter the Rear Valet Lot, a parking attendant will take your car for you and ask you for the last name of the member sponsoring you (Morgan) or the name of the function you are attending (Westerners luncheon).
Corral member Bill Morgan is sponsoring our event and deserves our thanks also for arranging for Corral guests to get the discounted Club members parking rate of $6.00.
The much smaller West Garden Lot is also located directly off Florida Avenue. And is protected by a gated entrance. There are no parking attendants at this lot. |
DRESS CODE: |
Jackets and ties required for gentlemen, similar attire for ladies (no jeans or tennis shoes). |
MENU: |
Meals must be pre-ordered by Tuesday, December 15, 2009. Please RSVP with your choice of entrée to Mike Lawson (Mike_Lawson@potomac-corral.org).
Please select from the following:
- Lemongrass Pesto Crusted Salmon with barley risotto, string beans with almonds and grapes and served with a lemon caper sauce;
- Lemon Sage Roasted Chicken Breast with barley risotto, string beans with almonds and grapes and a creamy red pepper sauce;
- Grilled Vegetable Ravioli in a creamy tomato, basil sauce with julienned vegetables, pine nuts and Parmesan cheese.
The cost is $50 per person. The luncheon price includes the entrée, hot popovers, and coffee or tea. Soft drinks are an $3.00; beer or wine is an additional $5. Cocktails will not be available. The book raffle will be $3.00 per ticket.
Cosmos Club rules prohibit money from changing hands on the premises. Therefore, the Corral will provide payment envelopes to attendees, who can fill out the enclosed payment form and the appropriate payment, and return the envelope to the Potomac Corral. All checks must be made payable to the Potomac Corral. |
DRINKS & BAR: |
It's $2.50 for soft drinks and $4.50 for beer and wine. Cocktails will not be available. |
PRICE: |
Because the Club does not permit money to change hands on its premises, the Corral depends on an honor system whereby quests keep track of their expenses for lunch, drinks, and incidentals and mail the amount due to our Tallyman after the meeting in an envelope that will be provided. |
OTHER: |
Please make a special effort to attend this meeting. This is the most important meeting of the year because we are presenting our annual Dykes Award. Please feel free to invite family, friends, and relatives. Thanks! |
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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 19th, 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: 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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Television Documentary: We Shall Remain is a groundbreaking mini-series and provocative multi-media project that establishes Native history as an essential part of American history. Five 90-minute documentaries spanning three hundred years tell the story of pivotal moments in U.S. history from the American Indian perspective. Coming April 2009, check local PBS listings for more information.
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Exhibition: Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West examines how photography has pictured the idea of the American West from 1850 to the present. Photography's development coincided with the exploration and the settlement of the West, and their simultaneous rise resulted in a complex association that has shaped the perception of the West's physical and social landscape to this day. Into the Sunset brings together over 120 photographs made by a variety of photographers, including Robert Adams, John Baldessari, Dorothea Lange, Timothy O'Sullivan, Cindy Sherman, Joel Sternfeld, Edward Weston, and Carleton E. Watkins. March 29 through June 8, 2009, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
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Lecture: One Hundred Summers: Kiowa Calendars and History Keeping will present one of those pictorial records, a recently discovered calendar kept by the Kiowa artist Silver Horn covering one hundred years of his tribe’s history from the summer of 1828 to the winter of 1928-29. The talk will explore how Kiowa concepts of representation and intellectual property have shaped the pictorial record. National Museum of the American Indian, Mall Museum Board Room, 5th Floor: Thursday, February 12, 12:00-1:30 p.m.
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Lecture: Dr. Michael Brodhead, member of the Potomac Corral, will deliver the lecture at the next meeting of the National Capital Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, February 10, 2009. Dr. Brodhead will speak on the life of Elliot Coues, who studied the flora, fauna, and history of the American West. The Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at 1201 17th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., will host the event. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., lecture starts at 7:00 p.m.
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The Indian Craft Shop at the Department of the Interior is presenting a special assemblage of American Indian jewelry and art depicting Flags & Eagles; this event will run from January 14 to January 23, 2009. The Indian Craft Shop will hold its Annual Sale from February 17 to February 27, 2009. The Indian Craft Shop is located at the U.S. Department of the Interior / 1849 C Street, NW / Washington, DC 20240 / (202) 208-4056. Please bring a photo ID for entrance to the building.
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Exhibition: A Century Ago - "They Came as Sovereign Leaders" On view at the National Museum of the American Indian are photographs of six great Native chiefs who participated in President Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural parade: Buckskin Charlie (Ute), American Horse (Oglala Sioux), Quanah Parker (Comanche), Geronimo (Chiricahua Apache), Hollow Horn Bear (Brule Sioux), and Little Plume (Piegan Blackfeet). While the chiefs were invited to add color to the parade, they arrived with their own concerns and actively sought President Roosevelt's attention to the needs of their people. The exhibition is on display January 14, 2009 - February 17, 2009.
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Exhibition: George de Forest Brush: The Indian Paintings.
Combining extraordinary technical skills acquired in Paris with firsthand experience living among the Arapahoe, Shoshone, and Crow in Wyoming and Montana, George de Forest Brush (1854/1855 - 1941) created an important series of paintings of American Indians much celebrated by his contemporaries but rarely seen since. Many of these works were quickly acquired by major American collectors and have remained in private hands through several generations. The accompanying catalogue, incorporating new research, is the first scholarly study of this series. This exhibition will be on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from September 14, 2008 to January 4, 2009.
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Exhibition: Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities. This exhibition celebrates the deep commitment to the American landscape by these two iconic artists—and how both artists intensely focused their attention on beauty in nature. The exhibition includes 43 paintings from public and private collections and 54 photographs borrowed primarily from the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. The exhibition runs from September 26, 2008 through January 4, 2009, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
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May 2009: Elaine Weiss, author and speaker, "On the Trail of the Woman's Land Army
in the American West."
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January 2009: Michelle Delaney, Curator of Photography, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier."
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November 2008: Nancy K. Anderson, Ph.D., Curator of American and British Paintings at the National Gallery of Art, "Coming East to Study the West" and "The Art of George de Forest Brush."
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September 2008: Frank Goodyear, Ph.D.,associate curator, National Portrait Gallery, "Revisiting the American West: The National Portrait Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition, 'The Frontier Remade: Photographic Portraits from the American West, 1845-1924.'"
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May 2008: Francis Flavin, Ph.D., historian, U.S. Department of the Interior, "Pens, Paintings, Panoramas, and Pixels: Documenting the Great Waterways of the American West."
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March 2008: William E. Foley, Professor Emeritus the University of Central Missouri, "Lewis and Clark's American Travels: The View From Europe." (Special joint meeting with the Lewis and Clark Heritage Trail Foundation)
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January 2008: Special farewell dinner held at Ted's Montana Grill in Arlington for Chet Hanson, longtime member and officer of the Potomac Corral.
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October 2007: Russell David Edmunds, Ph.D., Watson Professor of History, University of Texas at Dallas and President, The Western History Association, 2006-2007, "Moving With the Seasons, Not Fixed in Stone: The Evolution of Native American Identity."
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September 2007: Dr. Michael J. Brodhead, Ph.D., historian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and President of the Council of America's Military Past (CAMP), “Elliott Coues: Naturalist and Frontier Historian."
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May 2007: Brad Patterson,former White House Special Assistant for Native American Programs, and Brian Patterson, Office Manager and Executive Chef of the Washington Office of the American Medical Association, "Kayaking the Big Rapids of the Colorado River."
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February 2007: Francis Flavin, Ph.D., historian, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Same Symbols, Different Stories: The Plains Indians and the History of the American Westward Expansion.”
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November 2006: Michael J. Broadhead, Ph.D., historian, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “Isaac C. Parker: Federal Justice on the Frontier.”
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September 2006: Joseph Herring, historian and senior program officer, National Endowment for the Humanities, "'The ‘Noble Savage’ on Tour in Europe: The Iowa Indians and George Catlin in England and France, 1843-1845."
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May 2006: Bradley H. Patterson, Jr., former White House Special Assistant for Native American Programs, "Mountaineering in the West: Challenges to Mind, Body, and Spirit."
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