Photography News

Carter Museum in Fort Worth showcases rare Western photos by celeb shooter

Richard Avedon Foundation, Avedon's West

Ruby Mercer, publicist, Frontier Days, Cheyenne, Wyoming, 7/31/82, by Richard Avedon

Photo courtesy of Richard Avedon Foundation

Photographer Richard Avedon is best known for his work in fashion and portraits, but the Amon Carter Museum of American Art is showcasing another glorious side.

Called"Avedon's West," it's an installation of select works Avedon shot from 1979-1985 for an exhibit that was commissioned by The Carter in 1979. That exhibit, called "In the American West," was a landmark body of work of 124 photographs.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Avedon's birth, the Carter will showcase 13 of those 124 photographs, several on view for the first time since their 1985 premiere.

The museum-wide installation is on view at the Carter now through October 1.

"We are excited to take part in the national celebration of Richard Avedon’s 100th birthday and to have the opportunity to highlight this influential project, which our museum commissioned nearly 45 years ago,” says Carter Executive Director Andrew J. Walker in a statement.

"Today, Avedon’s 'In the American West' is regarded as a turning point in the photographic canon, challenging conceptions of portraiture and late twentieth-century American life," Walker says. "We are proud to be a part of the history of this monumental project, which is rooted in the Carter’s long-held commitment to working with living artists to tell a broader story of American art."

In 1979, the Carter commissioned Avedon to create a portrait of the region. He spent the next six summers, from 1979 to 1984, traveling to 189 towns in 13 states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming — and into Canada.

He conducted 752 sittings of everyday and often marginalized people - oilfield and slaughterhouse workers, coal miners, students, and service workers - in the same iconic style he used in portraits of celebrities and politicians: against a seamless white backdrop, designed to remove visual markers of place and focus on the individuality of each person.

Each photograph is titled with subject name, location, date, and an occupation. The 1985 exhibition was regarded as a landmark work of portraiture and a definitive expression of the power of photographic art.

Highlights of the works on view in Avedon’s West include the following subjects and commentaries:

Ruby Mercer, publicist, Frontier Days, Cheyenne, Wyoming, 7/31/82 (1982) — This portrait is on view in the Modern America gallery, which highlights the explosive growth of technological advances and urban development in the twentieth century, and artists’ responses to these dramatic transformations. Avedon’s portrait of Mercer not only highlights the role of working women in the West, which is often overlooked in antiquated narratives of the region, but her profession as a publicist emphasizes the business of selling the West as a commodity.

Carol Crittendon, bartender, Butte, Montana, 7/1/81 (1981) — While most western art features male figures such as Euro-American cowboys, "In the American West" expands the narrative incorporating women more fully into the story of the West. Two photographs of Montanan women, including this portrait, are on view in the Legacy Gallery alongside iconic works by Charles Russell, who lived in Montana for over 40 years, broadening the gallery’s presentation of the American West to include other genders and professions.

Blue Cloud Wright, slaughterhouse worker, Omaha, Nebraska, 8/10/79 (1979), Avedon’s portrait of Wright is on view in the America as Landscape gallery, a space dedicated to depictions by nineteenth-century artists of the landscapes of what is now the United States. This positioning allows viewers to confront the reality of the slaughterhouse industry in a gallery that probes the relationships between humans, animals, and land in American national identity.

Rusty McCrickard, janitor, Tracey Featherston, motel maid, Dixon, California, 5/10/81 (1981) — As a photographer who spent his career photographing the powerful and famous, Avedon’s decision to turn his attention toward picturing everyday people in the same monumental style declares their importance and poses questions about class and equality that reverberate today. This portrait, on view in the Opulence and the Everyday gallery, focuses on the artwork that blossomed out of the affluence of the late nineteenth century. The insertion of Avedon’s subjects within the surrounding representations of wealthy socialites further reinforces the artist’s mission to democratize portraiture.

Ancient Sculpture News

Fort Worth museum one of only 3 in U.S. to get rare sculpture exhibit

Lorenzo di Masi/Torlonia Collection

The Torlonia Nile

A major exhibition of ancient Roman masterworks is coming to the U.S. for the first time to be viewed at only three museums — including the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Called Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection, it's an assemblage of works stewarded by the Torlonia Family beginning in the early-19th century, and will be installed at the Kimbell from September 14, 2025 – January 25, 2026.

As part of the Foundation’s mission to showcase these historical works to the public, the exhibition will premiere at the Art Institute of Chicago on March 15 through June 29, before traveling to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Its third stop will be at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, from March 14 - July 19, 2026.

The Torlonia Collection was established during the course of the 19th century by the Franco-Italian banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia and his son Alessandro, then handed down over generations, eventually growing into the largest private collection of ancient Roman sculptures.

Today, the Torlonia Foundation represents the culmination of the Family’s continued passion for art. Created at the behest of Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1925–2017), the Foundation’s mission is to preserve and promote the Torlonia Collection and Villa Albani Torlonia.

In 1876, Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1800-1886) created a museum to house and exhibit the Family’s holdings, which was open to small groups until its closure at the onset of World War II. The sculptures remained unseen by the public from that time until the Foundation’s first exhibition at the Musei Capitolini in Rome in 2020. That was followed by a stint at the Louvre, the first presentation of the collection outside of Rome, where it has drawn more than 600,000 visitors to date, an unprecedented feat.

The exhibit
The curators of Myth & Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection are Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff of the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, in collaboration with the Kimbell Art Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and The Museum Box. All of the sculptures in the exhibition have been restored by the Foundation with the support of Bvlgari.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue co-published by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, edited by Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff, with essays by Silvia Beltrametti and Salvatore Settis.

The North American presentation will feature 58 highlights from the Torlonia Collection, including 24 newly restored works that have not been on view in nearly a century. The sculptures date from approximately the 5th century BCE to the early 4th century CE, with the majority of the works dating to the High Imperial period (1st–2nd centuries CE). Highlights include examples of the most emblematic genres of ancient marble sculpture, acquired by the Torlonia Family from the most prominent collections of Rome’s patrician families, as well as from excavations made on the Family’s own estates throughout Italy.

“The Foundation is excited to be sharing the Torlonia Collection with audiences in North America for the first time. This exceptional group of ancient sculptures is a testament to the enduring cultural legacy of ancient Rome, as well as the vision and passion of multiple generations of the Torlonia Family,” said Alessandro Poma Murialdo, President of the Torlonia Foundation.

The presentation is organized thematically in six sections, featuring sculptures found on the Torlonia Family’s properties in Rome and the surrounding suburbs and their estate in Porto, Portugal, as well as a number of exceptional sarcophagi (stone coffins), among the largest sculpted works in marble to survive from ancient Rome.

The tour reinforces the work of the Foundation to advance the appreciation and understanding of this unparalleled collection and the rich cultural heritage it represents. The Foundation’s mission is carried out through a continuous joint effort between the public and private sectors, including with the cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Culture. The Foundation is supported by a longstanding collaboration with Bvlgari as the principal sponsor of the restoration project since its inception in Rome and throughout the global tour, and Chiomenti, who has lent invaluable support to the Foundation’s core activities.

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