Museum curators often receive public inquiries, and sometimes an outside person can be very helpful to gaining better insight on a painting or object in the museum. For Karen McWhorter, the curator of the Whitney Western Art Museum, a call from a professor made her look at George Catlin’s “Mandan-View of the Missouri Above the […]
When a visitor enters the Whitney Western Art Museum one sculpture might confuse the visitor. Choosing of the Arrow by Henry Kirke Brown might remind people not of the West, but of a classic European sculpture. But Karen McWhorter, the curator of the museum, said it’s actually the first bronze cast made in America in […]
Frederic Remington was a famous painter who was known for his depiction of the American West. But Karen McWhorter, the curator of the Whitney Western Art Museum, said at the end of his life his style changed. In his earlier years he was focused on accurate depiction and clarity of line, but McWhorter said this […]
In the 1820s, Native American diplomats traveled to Washington D.C. to negotiate peace deals with Americans. During that time period, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Thomas L. McKenney, commissioned portraits of hundreds of American Indian leaders. Karen McWhorter, the curator of the Whitney Western Art Museum, said McKenney commissioned the painter Charles Bird King but […]
Frank Perely Fairbanks was a classmate of Phimister Proctor’s, the famous American sculptor, at the American Academy in Rome. Fairbanks who himself was a portraitist admired Proctor greatly. So much so that he painted a monumental portrait of Proctor. Karen McWhorter, the curator of the Whitney Western Art Museum, said the painting doesn’t only portray […]
Back in 2015, when Karen McWhorter just started her position as curator of the Whitney Western Art Museum, she was interviewed for a magazine. One of the questions: what was her favorite painting in the Whitney’s collection? “I didn’t know what we had to be honest,” McWhorter recalled. “But this painting had been hanging in […]