Cowgirl Museum’s new art collection shows women’s contributions to the American West
An artist who spent years illustrating and documenting how cowgirls and ranch women contributed to the American West has donated her exhibit to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
“The Tough by Nature: Portraits of Cowgirls and Ranch Women of the American West” by Lynda Lanker will become part of the museum’s permanent collection, according to a news release.
The museum is celebrating the acquisition of the “Tough by Nature” exhibit in the Anne W. Marion Gallery Feb. 13 through this summer.
The exhibit includes 65 of Lanker’s drawings, paintings, works on paper and prints, which document a vanishing way of life that affirmed the role of women, many of them Hall of Fame Honorees, in the economy and ecology of the American West, according to the news release.
“We were fortunate to host this exhibition in 2013, and then to have it gifted to us seven years later is humbling,” said Dr. Diana Vela, associate executive director.
“It is a fitting gift to the museum as all of the women depicted in the exhibition personify our mission,” she said.
Lanker spent almost 20 years traveling to 13 states to sketch, paint, draw, interview and photograph women and tell the story of their lives.
“The Tough by Nature” exhibit features stories and portraits of over 50 women, including seven Cowgirl Hall of Fame Honorees.
The seven Honorees featured are Linda Mitchell Davis, Ruby Gobble, Jonnie Jonckowski, Gretchen Sammis, Georgie Sicking, Mollie Taylor Stevenson and Jan Youren.
The coffee table book accompanying the exhibit has a foreword written by Larry McMurtry, an introduction by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and an afterword by Maya Angelou.