The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 470

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

though the newsletter's focus is the South, it unfortunately does not in-
clude Texas and a few other states that belonged to the Confederacy.
Nevertheless, the newsletter is a valuable source of information about
new books, programs, and conferences that will be of interest to many
Texas scholars. Write to the SAF for a free subscription (and tell them
to include Texas in their coverage) at 1293 Peachtree Street, N.E., Suite
500, Atlanta, Georgia 30309.
Accessions
One of the major collections of Western American art, which has
been housed-through gift and loan at the University of Texas at
Austin for some years, is now owned entirely by the university's Archer
M. Huntington Art Gallery. The ninety-one works in the C. R. Smith
Collection of Western American Art consist of eighty-five paintings,
two drawings, and four sculptures by a cross-section of America's great
western artists. More than half of the works are on view on the first
floor of the Huntington's gallery space in the Harry Ransom Center.
Smith died at age ninety on April 4 in Bethesda, Maryland. His art gifts
and loans to the university began in 1965 and continued until the early
198os. During that time, he gave sixty-five of his art works to UT Aus-
tin, while lending it twenty-six pieces. His will stated that, after his
death, the works on loan would be given to UT Austin. Smith, who
studied business at UT Austin during 1921-1925, served for many
years as president of American Airlines. President Lyndon B. Johnson
appointed him U.S. secretary of commerce in 1968. He was named a
distinguished alumnus of UT Austin in 1963. Smith began collecting
western art during the depression years of the 1930os when art pieces
were low. His first art purchase was William Leigh's "The Roping,"
painted in 1914. Among the thirty-five artists represented in the collec-
tion are such masters of the western genre as Charles M. Russell,
Henry Farny, Maynard Dixon, Oscar Berninghaus, Albert Bierstadt,
Charles Schreyvogel, William Ranny, and Frank Tenney Johnson.
Fourteen of the works are by Farny, who was internationally known for
his depictions of Indians. With works from the 185os to the 1970s, the
collection abounds in subjects such as cowboys, Indians, wagon trains,
mountains, hunters, buffalo, wigwams, rivers, cattle, a cavalry charge,
and even a portrait of Sitting Bull. The Smith collection is a major
teaching and research component for the Huntington art gallery and
for courses in American studies, history, and art history. Association
member William H. Goetzmann of the UT faculty uses the collection in
his course on the art, photography, film, and culture of the American
West. He also used it in his nationally televised PBS series "The West of
the Imagination."

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