Presentation: Knowing the West
June 12 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm MDT
Knowing the West
A Presentation by Mindy N. Besaw, PhD
June 12, 2025
6–7:30 p.m.
Join us the evening of June 12 for this presentation in our occasional Peter Hassrick Public Program series. Mindy Besaw, a former curator of our Whitney Western Art Museum, presents Knowing the West, based on a traveling exhibition co-curated by Besaw and Jami Powell that premiered at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Besaw has worked since 2014.
About the program
Mindy Besaw shares insights about the exhibition Knowing the West, the first major traveling exhibition to embrace the American West as more inclusive, complex, and reflective of the diverse peoples who contributed to art and life there. Americans often feel they “know the West,” whether informed by direct experience or popular culture. The exhibition of more than 120 historic works by Native American and non-Native American artists brings together textiles, baskets, paintings, pottery, sculpture, beadwork, saddles, and prints to encourage deeper exploration of a familiar topic. This lecture highlights the remarkable artworks and stories about the artists, and reveals behind-the-scenes insight into the deeply collaborative process used to organize and realize the exhibition.
Knowing the West premiered at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (September 2024–January 2025). It travels to the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida (March–August 2025) and North Carolina Museum of Art (March–May 2026). The exhibition is accompanied by a multi-author, full-color catalogue, published by Rizzoli.
About the speaker
Mindy N. Besaw, PhD, is Director of Research, Fellowships, and University Partnerships, and Curator, American Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, where she has been since 2014. Besaw is co-curator, with Jami Powell, of Knowing the West (2024–2025). At Crystal Bridges, Besaw has curated and co-curated several exhibitions including Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices 1950s to Now (2018), Cross-Pollination: Martin Johnson Heade, Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church and our Contemporary Moment (2020); Companion Species (in partnership with the Museum of Native American History, Bentonville, 2020).
Prior to her current post, Besaw was curator of western American art at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming; and curatorial associate at the Denver Art Museum. Besaw holds a PhD in American Art History from the University of Kansas.
About the series
Peter Hassrick was one of America’s foremost scholar-authors on western American art. The Peter Hassrick Public Program Series perpetuates his passion for innovative and creative public programming through the Whitney Western Art Museum.
