The Collection

Sid Richardson began collecting the works of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell with the help of Newhouse Galleries of New York City. Newhouse became Richardson's principal dealer and helped him acquire the majority of his paintings. Oilmen like Richardson, Amon Carter, Thomas Gilcrease, Frank Phillips and R.W. Norton, themselves part of the western legend of freewheeling enterprise, established through their collections a link to the romantic legends of the Old West.

Captain William Clark, a painting by Charles M. Russell — Charles M. Russell | *Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Meeting with the Indians of the Northwest* | 18 | Oil on canvas | 29 1/2 inches x 41 1/2 inches

Sid Richardson did not limit his collection to Remington and Russell. While he showed no interest in Western landscapists or the pre-Civil War documentarians he did acquire works by such relatively unknown late nineteenth-century artists as Gilbert Gaul, Peter Moran, and Charles F. Browne. He had a preference for paintings with action or suspense and collected such works by Charles Schreyvogel, Oscar E. Berninghaus, Frank Tenney Johnson, William R. Leigh and Edwin W. Deming. (These works are currently on display in the museum.) But his primary interest was in Remington and Russell, adding an occasional work to his collection until a few years before his death on September 30, 1959. Time has confirmed his wisdom. Remington and Russell remain today what they were in their own day, the "titans of Western art."

Collection Additions

Love Call, painting by Frederic Remington — Frederic Remington | *The Love Call* | 1909 | Oil on canvas | 21 inches x 28 inches

The Foundation has acquired four additional paintings since Mr. Richardson's death. Although this Fort Worth Museum does not have an active acquisitions program, the board of directors does on occasion add new works to the collection. With the addition in 1993 of Frederic Remington's "Among the Led Horses", and in 1996 of Remington's "The Love Call", both painted in 1909, the collection was significantly strengthened. The Richardson Museum now owns 4 of the 17 oil paintings from Remington's last, critically acclaimed exhibition, held at Knoedler Gallery in New York City in December 1909 just prior to his death, making its collection "one of the finest assemblages of major late-life Remington paintings in the world" according to Dr. Brian W. Dippie, noted authority and scholar of both Remington and Russell.