Western Art Museums of the Year

Discover the best of the West at these western showplaces of american artists.

- By Johnny D. Boggs

2021-2022 was another time period many people would like to forget, but Western art museums sure made life better and helped take our minds off pandemics, politics and wars. Charles M. Russell and Maynard Dixon still can cure what ails us, and today's multitalented painters and sculptors-not to mention curators and docents-still touch us, move us, and make us think and wonder.

Here are the year's best:

1. C.M. RUSSELL MUSEUM (GREAT FALLS, MT)

The museum that houses Charles M. Russell's home and studio has always been true to Russell's vision. Russell would have been moved by The Sundance Series, Gary Schildt's 42 paintings of the Blackfeet Medicine Lodge Ceremony that ran from November 12, 2021, to May 22, 2022. But if you just want Russell, Modest Yet Masterful: Small Scale Masterworks by Charles M. Russell, which runs through September, reveals that Russell didn't need a large canvas to touch viewers. Besides, the permanent exhibits are among the best you'll find anywhere. CMRussell.org

2. JOSLYN ART MUSEUM (OMAHA, NE)

The museum that opened November 29, 1931, celebrated 90 years with Ninety Years of Joslyn Art Museum and highlighted one of its best collections with Faces from the Interior: The North American Portraits of Karl Bodmer, both of which closed May 1. We hope you got to see those, because on May 2, the Joslyn closed for construction and renovation. We can't wait till 2024, when the museum debuts its new look, including the 42,000-square-foot Rhonda and Howard Hawks Pavilion. Josyln.org