Amon Carter Museum

The Amon Carter Museum was established through the generosity of Amon G. Carter, Sr. (1879-1955), to house his collection of paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell; to collect, preserve, and exhibit the finest examples of American art; and to serve an educational role through exhibitions, publications, and programs devoted to the study of American art.

About Amon G. Carter Sr. (1879-1955)

Amon Giles Carter Sr. was born in a one-room log cabin in Crafton, Texas. His family moved to Bowie in 1893, where he worked at a variety of odd jobs. In 1900 he began working as a traveling salesman for the American Copying Company, a Chicago-based firm that specialized in oil-colored portrait photographs, and became national sales manager in 1901. (left: Amon G. Carter Sr., photo courtesy Amon Carter Museum)

After a short stint with an advertising firm in San Francisco, Carter turned down a number of lucrative job offers to move to Fort Worth in 1905, where he established a one-man business, Texas Advertising and Manufacturing Company. He became advertising manager of the Fort Worth Star, which published its first issue on Feb. 1, 1906; he was promoted to business manager a short time later. At the time, he sold peaches from his small farm to local grocers to support the operations of the struggling newspaper.

In 1908 he convinced an investor to buy the rival Fort Worth Telegram, and it was merged with the Fort Worth Star soon after. By 1919 the paper had the largest circulation in Texas, a position it did not relinquish until the 1950s. It was during these years that Carter began calling archrival Dallas part of "East Texas" and tagged Fort Worth as the place "where the West begins." He expanded his media interests in 1922 when he established WBAP, the first radio station in Fort Worth. He became president and publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1923.

Carter was an early aviation enthusiast. In 1911 he headed a committee that brought the first airplane to the area. In 1917 he was responsible for three World War I flying fields being located in Fort Worth. By 1928 he was a director and part owner of the Aviation Corporation, later a component of American Airlines. When oil was discovered in North Texas in the 1920s, Carter helped persuade a number of oilmen to move to Fort Worth, encouraging the building of a number of skyscrapers and reinforcing his own interest in petroleum discovery. His first successful oil well was drilled in New Mexico in 1935, creating a strong financial base for his future philanthropy.

His taste in art sprang from a historic sense, and he avidly identified with the American West. So, it was only natural that he should collect the works of painters like Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. Carter became an important collector with his 1945 acquisition of Remington's masterpiece, A Dash for the Timber (1889).

Carter established the Amon G. Carter Foundation in 1945. When he died in 1955, his will stipulated that a museum to house his collection be established by the foundation, leaving the details to his daughter Ruth Carter Stevenson (b. 1923) and son Amon Carter Jr. (19191982).

Though Carter did not live to see the museum, it was built according to his wish that it be located on a hill commanding an excellent view of downtown Fort Worth. The Amon Carter Museum opened in 1961, six years after Carter's death.

Please see the Museum's website for admission fees and hours.

TFAO also suggests these DVD or VHS videos:

Amon Carter Museum Composites:

Amon Carter Museum Composite I: Carleton Watkins: Photographer of the American West Introduces photographer Carleton Watkins (1829--1916), who documented Yosemite and other wilderness areas, as well as industrial and architectural progress of the American West. 5-minute video segment.
Amon Carter Museum Composite I: Carlotta Corpron: Designer with Light Presents evidence of why photographer Carlotta Corpron (1901--1988) was called "a master of light-poetry." The artist explains how she used paper, mirrors, and other simple devices to modulate light in her photographs. 10-minute video segment.
Amon Carter Museum Composite I: The Graphic Techniques of Mary Cassatt Focuses on Mary Cassatt's (1844--1926) beautiful series of colored prints of women and children, which combined dry-point engraving with soft-ground etching. 8-minute video segment.
Amon Carter Museum Composite I: Wet-Plate Photography Demonstrates the wet plate photography process through computer animation of 19th-century technical manuals. 5-minute video segment.
Amon Carter Museum Composite II: The Art of the Woodcut Discusses why some artists say that woodcut is the printmaking process with the least to be taught and the most to be learned 8-minute video segment.
Amon Carter Museum Composite II: George Bellows Lithographs Surveys the evolution of George Bellows' (1882--1925) lithographic style, through side-by-side comparisons and demonstrations of the printmaking techniques he employed. 10-minute video segment.
Amon Carter Museum Composite II: How to Identify an Etching Demonstrates how an etching is made and, using macro photography, reveals the qualities of an etched line, a drypoint line, aquatint, and plate tone. 5-minute video segment.
Amon Carter Museum Composite II: What is a Lithograph? Demonstrates the basic steps in the creation of a lithograph. Examines works by American lithographers that reveal the range of line and tonal qualities characteristic of the medium 7-minute video segment. Description source: Amon Carter Museum Teacher Resource Center. The Museum contains a comprehensive lending library including many videos.

TFAO does not maintain a lending library of videos or sell videos. Click here for information on how to borrow or purchase copies of VHS videos and DVDs listed in TFAO's Videos -DVD/VHS, an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format

Google Book Searches conducted in 2008 and 2013 by Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) located the following brochures, catalogues and gallery guides published on paper in connection with the Museum and with a topic of American representational art. The list may not include all relevant publications. Titles are listed by date of publication, with most recent listed first. Information on publications may be in error or incomplete. Titles may be followed by links to related essays published by Resource Library. See Definitions for more information on finding brochures, catalogues and gallery guides using TFAO's website.

Intimate Modernism: Fort Worth Circle Artists in the 1940s, by Scott Grant Barker, Jane Myers, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 2008 - 205 page

Sentimental Journey: the Art of Alfred Jacob Miller, by Lisa Maria Strong, Amon Carter Museum, 2008 - 237 pages. Sentimental Journey: The Art of Alfred Jacob Miller / Introduction: "Scenes That Do Him Much Honor"; essay by Lisa Strong (11/19/08)

An American Collection: Works from the Amon Carter Museum, by Patricia A. Junker, Hudson Hills, 2001 - 287 pages Preview

150 Years of American Art: Amon Carter Museum Collection, The Museum, May 1, 1996 - 40 pages

Clara Sipprell: Pictorial Photographer, by Mary Kennedy McCabe, Clara Estelle Sipprell. Published 1990 by Amon Carter Museum. ISBN 0883600641. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Dec 17, 2007 Snippet View

George Bellows: The Artist and His Lithographs, 1916-1924, by Jane Myers, Linda Ayres. Published 1988 by Amon Carter Museum. 202 pages. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Nov 14, 2007 Snippet View.

Grand Illusions: History Painting in America, by William H. Gerdts. Photographs by Mark Edward Thistlethwaite. Published 1988 by Amon Carter Museum. 174 pages. ISBN 0883600560. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Aug 13, 2007 Snippet View

America Illustrated: Nineteenth-century Illustrated Books from the Amon Carter Museum Library : January 15-March 6, 1988. Amon Carter Museum of Western Art. Library, Milan R. Hughston, 1988 - 4 pages

American Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings from the Collection of Rita and Daniel Fraad, by Linda Ayres, Jane Myers. Published 1985 by Amon Carter Museum. 114 pages. ISBN 0883600757. Original from the University of California. Digitized Mar 6, 2007 Snippet View

Frederic Remington, the Camera & the Old West, by Estelle Jussim. Published 1983 by Amon Carter Museum. ISBN 0883600447. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Nov 9, 2007 Snippet View

The Southern Landscape Tradition in Texas, by John Brinckerhoff Jackson. Published 1980 by Amon Carter Museum. ISBN 0883600358. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Jan 8, 2007 Snippet View

West Comes East: Frontier Painting and Sculpture from the Amon Carter Museum, Issue 7, Worcester Art Museum, Gaye L. Brown - 1979

W. H. D. Koerner: Illustrating the Western Myth, by William Henry Hutchinson, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1969 - 16 pages

Aunt Clara: The Paintings of Clara McDonald Williamson, by Donald Vogel, Margaret Vogel. Published 1966 for the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art by the University of Texas Press. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized May 31, 2007 Snippet View.

Camposantos: A Photographic Essay, by Dorothy Benrimo, Rebecca Salsbury James, Elizabeth Boyd, Published 1966 by Amon Carter Museum of Western Art. 76 pages.. Original from University of Texas. Digitized Aug 15, 2007. Snippet View.

Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist from 1915 to 1966, Published 1966 by Amon Carter Museum of Western Art. 30 pages. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Nov 13, 2007 Snippet View

Peter Hurd: A Portrait Sketch from Life, by Paul Horgan. Published 1965 for the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, by the University of Texas Press. 68 pages. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Nov 13, 2007 Snippet View

Santos: An Exhibition of the Religious Folk Art of New Mexico, by Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, George Kubler. Published 1964 by Amon Carter Museum of Western Art. 30 pages Snippet View

Book information courtesy of Google Books.

The potential for the essays in the above books to be placed online for free access by the public is of interest to TFAO. For information on digitizing initiatives from non profit organizations please see digitizing initiatives. Also please see commercial ventures. For information on two of TFAO's digitizing initiatives please click here for the Institutional Sources Study Project, here for the Collections-Centric Scholarly Texts Project, here for Resource Library's Scholarly texts services to Institutions, and here for TFAO's grant program for conversion of analog text to digital files and online publication of scholarly texts

Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. (TFAO) neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.

Why was this sub-index page prepared?

When Resource Library publishes over time more than one article concerning an institution, there is created as an additional resource for readers a sub-index page containing links to each Resource Library article or essay concerning that institution, plus available information on its location and other descriptive information.

See TFAO's Museums Explained to learn about the "inner workings" of art museums and the functions of staff members. In the exhibitions section find out how to get the most out of a museum visit. See definitions for a glossary of museum-related words used in articles.
To help you plan visits to institutions exhibiting American art when traveling see Sources of Articles Indexed by State within the United States.

Unless otherwise noted, all text and image materials relating to the above institutional source were provided by that source. Before reproducing or transmitting text or images please read Resource Library's user agreement.

Traditional Fine Arts Organization's catalogues provide many more useful resources:

American Representational Art links to dozens of topics in American Representational Art
Audio Online a catalogue of online streaming audio recordings
Collections of Historic American Art notable private collections
Distinguished Artists a national registry of historic artists
Geographic Tour of American Representational Art History a catalogue of articles and essays that describe the evolution of American art from the inception of the United States to WWII.
Illustrated Audio Online streaming online narrated slide shows
Articles and Essays Online substantive texts published outside of Resource Library
Videos Online a comprehensive catalogue of online full motion videos streamed free to viewers
Videos an authoritative guide to videos in VHS and DVD format
Books general reference books published on paper
Interactive media media in CD-ROM format
Magazines paper-published magazines and journals

Search Resource Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.