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Charles M. Russell Center

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Charles M. Russell Center

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Founded in 1998, the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West is the first such university-based program in the nation. The center, which opened to the public in the fall of 1999, is dedicated to the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge in the field of American art history as it relates to the western United States. Through its resource center, national symposia, course offerings and related outreach programs, the Russell Center actively engages students and the public in developing a better understanding of, and appreciation for, artistic traditions of the American West. Special emphasis is given to art of Charles M. Russell and his contemporaries. The Russell Center was established concurrently with the Charles Marion Russell Chair, an endowed professorship in art history at the University of Oklahoma.

Both the center and the endowed chair were made possible through a generous gift from the Nancy Russell Trust and matching funds from the state of Oklahoma. Administered through the School of Visual Arts and the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts, the Russell Center operates in concert with several of the University of Oklahoma’s other distinguished branches including the Western History Collections, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, and the departments of History, Literature, Native American Studies and Film and Video Studies. The Russell Center also actively interfaces with institutions across the country, including museums of Western art and universities that support related programs or collections of Western material culture or art.

Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West


CHARLES M. RUSSELL CENTER EVENTS - SPRING 2023

Thursday, February 23 at 3 p.m.
RETURNING HOME: Diné Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School.
A conversation with the authors Farina King, Ph.D., Horizon Endowed Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences Department of Native American Studies; James Swensen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of English, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; Mike Taylor, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of English, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2021).

Tuesday, March 21 at 3 PM
Dr. Spencer Wigmore, Associate Curator, Amon Carter Museum of Art, workshop sharing ongoing exhibition project on Charles Russell and tactility for Fall 2024

At the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art
Friday, April 21 – 9:30 AM-4:30 PM
11th biennial Russell Center Symposium, Transnational Wests, featuring photographer Jeremiah Ariaz; Denver Art Museum curator Jennifer R. Henneman, photo historian Emily Voelker, and women and gender studies scholar Danika Medak-Saltzman (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art Auditorium, with breakfast from 8:45-930 and reception from 4-5:30 in the Russell Center.