Buffalo Bill Center of the West Museum Is a Must-See Celebration of the American West

Afew weeks ago, I found a new museum to add to my list of favorites. It’s not an indiscriminately long list — I’m a tough critic when it comes to museums, unlike a dog when it comes to cuisine — but the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody, Wyo., is so various, so filled with treasures, so surprising, so beautifully presented, and so much fun that I spent two afternoons there. I visited as a tenderfoot. Aside from a quickie wedding in Reno — not mine — and the annual dance festival in Vail, I’d never been to a mountain state or the Dakotas.

Today I’ll look at its wonderful collection of the art of the American West, displayed in a wing called the Whitney Western Art Museum. The first subject when visitors enter the place is bison. Or buffalos. There’s a difference. The colloquial is “buffalo,” and in its Buffalo Nation exhibit, the museum usually goes with that, but an honest-to-goodness buffalo is Asian or African. Bison by the millions, nomadic grazers, fed Native tribes and, along with Western landscapes and Indians, were prime subjects for artists.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Afew weeks ago, I found a new museum to add to my list of favorites. It’s not an indiscriminately long list — I’m a tough critic when it comes to museums, unlike a dog when it comes to cuisine — but the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody, Wyo., is so various, so filled with treasures, so surprising, so beautifully presented, and so much fun that I spent two afternoons there. I visited as a tenderfoot. Aside from a quickie wedding in Reno — not mine — and the annual dance festival in Vail, I’d never been to a mountain state or the Dakotas.

Today I’ll look at its wonderful collection of the art of the American West, displayed in a wing called the Whitney Western Art Museum. The first subject when visitors enter the place is bison. Or buffalos. There’s a difference. The colloquial is “buffalo,” and in its Buffalo Nation exhibit, the museum usually goes with that, but an honest-to-goodness buffalo is Asian or African. Bison by the millions, nomadic grazers, fed Native tribes and, along with Western landscapes and Indians, were prime subjects for artists.