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"Branding the American West" Book Wins Award

Marian Wardle, recently retired Curator of American Art at the BYU Museum of Art, has co-authored an award-winning book and exhibition catalog of the exhibition Branding the American West: Paintings and Films, 1900-1950. The exhibition, comprised of paintings and sculpture from the collections of the BYU Museum of Art and the Stark Museum of Orange, Texas, was first on display at the BYU MOA from February 19 to August 13, 2016. From there, the exhibition traveled to the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia and then to the Stark Museum.

The book, entitled Branding the American West, was co-authored by Marian Wardle and Sarah Boehm, Curator at the Stark Museum. The book was awarded the Joan Patterson Kerr Book Award at the West History Association Conference on November 4, 2017. The Joan Paterson Kerr Award is presented annually for the best-illustrated book of the history of the American West.

The mission statement of the Western History Association explains, “The Western History Association strives to be a congenial home for the study and teaching of all aspects of North American Wests, frontiers, homelands and borderlands. Our mission is to cultivate the broadest appreciation of this diverse history.”

Branding the American West is illustrated with more than 150 images and examines select paintings and films within the exhibitionBranding the American West: Paintings and Films, 1900-1950. The contributors to this volume illuminate the complex ways in which early-twentieth-century artists, as well as filmmakers, evoked a southwestern environment not just suspended in time but also permanent rather than transient.

The 2017 award program of the Western History Association states, “This book will be of great value to many scholars of Western history and culture.”

Branding the American West is published in association with the Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah, and the Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas.

Image: Maynard Dixon (1875-1946), 'Lonesome Journey,' 1946, oil on canvas, 26 1/8 x 36 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of Dickman Investment, 1974.