At the Briscoe, we celebrate our shared heritage through art and artifacts that tell the stories of the West. The Western spirit that glows inside us all. It inspires and unites us and it’s too big to be contained. So we’re throwing open our virtual doors and taking the West Beyond the Briscoe to celebrate it and share it. Head West with us and explore our Western history and heritage, and the art that keeps those stories alive.
Wide open spaces aren’t limited by boundaries. Neither are we. After all, there’s a little cowboy or cowgirl in us all. Saddle up, hitch those wagons and hit the trail with the Beyond the Briscoe, bringing the West to life in your inbox every week and here on our website.
Thanks for joining us on the journey. We can’t wait to see you on the trail.
Featured Image: Camino de Galvez by T.D. Kelsey
Along the river, you’re greeted by an immense bronze sculpture of a vaquero driving three long-horned steers up the riverbank. The vaquero pushes the cattle along with a sharp crack of his rawhide lariat. This double-life-sized work was created by the cowboy sculptor T. D. Kelsey and is titled Camino de Gálvez. Find out why the placement and theme of this sculpture are quite appropriate to the history of San Antonio as well as the mission of The Briscoe Western Art Museum.
Featured This Week: The Briscoe Building
Nestled on the banks of the San Antonio River Walk, the museum’s main building served as San Antonio’s original public library in the 1930s. The building was home to the Hertzberg Circus Collection and Museum in the 1980s. After an extensive renovation to restore the building’s original beauty and splendor, the Briscoe Western Art Museum opened in 2013.
A branch of the San Antonio Public Library is featured on the first floor, honoring the building’s origins. The museum is named in honor of Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe, Jr., and his wife Janey Slaughter Briscoe, who envisioned a museum that would share the story of Western heritage and the people behind that story.
How the West was Fun: As the first public library here in San Antonio, there’s one thing that there’s never been a shortage of within the walls of the building and that’s paper. To pay homage to the building’s original purpose, we wanted to teach you how creating paper is easy! Click here to download the paper making instructions.
Lil Partners Story Time: This week we read “Rosita’s Bridge” written by Mary McMillan Fisher and illustrated by Barbara Mathews Whitehead. Rosita Fernandez, born in Mexico and the ninth of 16 children, was adapting to a new home north of the Rio Grande in San Antonio, Texas.
The #BuildtheWest Challenge continues! Each week our master LEGO® builder creates something inspired by the West! Think you can do it better? Post your creation on social media and use the hashtag #BuildtheWest! The story behind this week’s #BuildtheWest: Visions of Change by Michael Coleman was one of the first pieces of art brought into the building. In order to fit the massive bronze that sits in the lobby of the museum, the doors were taken off the hinges and it was lifted in by crane after the Native American that sits on top of the bronze was removed.
This week we got a different kind of submission for #BuildtheWest! One of our fans created the Briscoe Western Art Museum in Minecraft. Check out this awesome video to take a look at the outside of the building and the first floor, including Visions of Change and our Wells Fargo Stagecoach.
The Cowboy Way: DIY Museum Gallery
Ever wonder what it takes to make our galleries look perfect? We leave it to the professionals! Now our Exhibition Manager, Jason Kirkland, is going to take you step by step to curating your very own gallery at home!
Click here to download the instructions.
Featured Image: Western artists have gravitated toward the theme of the solitary bison since the near extinction of the animal. When you walk through the doors of the Briscoe, it’s hard to miss the buffalo nickles on the decorative molding in the lobby and the bison within the “O” of Briscoe. Greg Beecham, a well-known wildlife artist that participates in Night of Artists each year, created this piece. But why August Rumblings?
Click here to read more about this piece.
Greg Beecham, August Rumblings, Oil on linen, Purchased with funds provided by Kim Lewis.
Featured Gallery: The landscape and wildlife of the American West are the stuff of legend. San Antonio sits at a “continental divide” as a gateway to the American West and is considered a crossroads between the more humid East and the drier West.
How the West was Fun: Texas is a permanent and migratory home to thousands of incredible birds. You can even find a few in your backyard. Grab the family and head outside for this fun bird scavenger hunt!
Click here to download our backyard birding checklist.
Lil Partners Story Time
Build The West
Every good cowboy or cowgirl needs a good pair of binoculars. You can create a pair with items you have at your house, and if you follow our steps, you’ll be upcycling!
Click here to download the instructions.
Featured Image: Fandango is a mystery: the author and title are both unknown. The detailed scene shows a Fandango, a vibrant, improvised community folk music celebration. Originating from Veracruz Mexico, Fandango musicians perform San Jarocho music using string and percussion instruments that can be recognized by today’s audience from the classic song “La Bamba”.
Click here to read more about Fandango.
Featured Gallery: The Guerra family landed in Veracruz, Nueva Espana just 87 years after Cortez sailed to the new world. Their namesake gallery tells the story of the lasting legacy of the Hispanic culture in the West through beautiful art and artifacts.
Beautiful, bright and colorful, papel picado makes every occasion a celebration. Add this traditional Mexican handcraft to your Mother’s Day special by making homemade papel picado.
Watch the Craft in America segment about local artist Kathleen Trenchard.
Featured Image: Autumn Landscapes by Julian Onderdonk
The West is a conglomeration of many geographic landscapes, cultures, languages, and histories. It can be hard to sense where regional art ends and Western art begins. San Antonio native Julian Onderdonk’s depictions of fields full of the state flower forged an entirely new sub-genre of Texas art. Click here to read more about Onderdonk.
Featured Gallery: At the core of Western art are the stories that artists create about life and culture in the American West. Women are a vital part of the regional narrative. Click here to view a tour of the gallery.
How the West was Fun: Driving through the Texas Hill Country on a beautiful spring day, you’ll see the stunning blue of our state flower, the bluebonnet. Keep that memory forever by creating your very own bluebonnet masterpiece!
Click here to download the instructions.
Did you know: The bluebonnet was selected as the state flower in 1901 trumping the cotton boll and the cactus flower as competition?
Lil Partners Story Time:
Build the West:
The Cowboy Way:
Featured Image: While social distancing might be a challenge for some, artists like Georgia O’Keeffe reveled in solitude, producing amazing work from her time spent in the mountains of New Mexico. Through her sixty-year exploration of Western landscapes themes in her work, O’Keeffe became one of the greatest and best known Western artists.
Click here to read more about Georgia.
Featured Gallery: At the core of Western art are the stories that artists create about life and culture in the American West. Women are a vital part of the regional narrative. Click here to view a tour of the gallery.
Remembering Glenna Goodacre: Here at the Briscoe, we were incredibly sad to hear about artist Glenna Goodacre’s passing away last week. Her work highlighted many of the overlooked figures in history and captured moments of true joy. We pay homage to a spectacular artist whose art is a permanent fixture of the museum collection. Click here to learn more about Glenna’s contributions to Western Art.
How the West was Fun: Get hands on and start sculpting like artists at the Briscoe! extensive collection contains hundreds of artworks cast in bronze depicting bison, cattle, broncos, and cowboys. By gathering simple materials from home, you can create your own longhorn sculpture to join the herd. Get inspired by the artists we know and love, and follow these steps to get started: Click here to download the instructions.
Lil Partners Story Time
Build the West:
The Cowboy Way: The name Texas is derived from the word “teyshas”, meaning friends or allies, from the native American Caddo language. In the 1540s Spanish explorers took “teyshas” to be a tribal name, recording it as Teyas or Tejas. Now is the perfect time to make and mail friendship bracelets to your “teyshas”! Click here to download step by step directions.
Virtual Backgrounds from the Briscoe
No matter where you are, get in the saddle and Zoom from the West with these beautiful backgrounds featuring the Briscoe. Click the image and download and use them with your favorite video conference application.
DOWNLOAD: Click to name of the image you’d like to save, it will open in a new window. Once the window is open, right click or hold the image to save as.
Featured Image: The Alamo Diorama, King & Country (Maker), 2013, Wood, tin, resin, and painted and textured Styrofoam, Purchased with funds provided by Mark E. Watson, Jr.
Play I SPY with our Featured Image:
I SPY is a guessing game where one player (the spy or it) chooses an object within sight and announces to the other players that “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with…”, naming the first letter of the object. Play with others as they attempt to guess what you see. Click here to play.
Featured Gallery: A- Gallery Tex Elliott Family located on the third floor of the museum. Of all the galleries in the Briscoe Western Art Museum, none are more frequently visited than this gallery. Also known as the “Conflict Gallery,” this relatively small space in the museum attracts more school groups than any other. Click here to learn more about the gallery.
Create your very own version of our Alamo diorama in your home! Though we know what the battle of the Alamo looked like through firsthand accounts, let your imagination run wild. Follow these simple steps using what you have around the house to create your very own version of history. Click here to download the instructions
The Cowboy Way: Let’s go back in time to the battle of the Alamo in 1836. Similar to our reality in 2020, the people in San Antonio who fled to the Alamo were faced with an enormous challenge. Men, women and children sought shelter in order to stay safe from the world outside. Gathered in the Alamo, they talked, prayed, played music, and used what they had to prepare meals. While they did not have modern amenities, they persevered with what they had on hand. Click here to download instructions.
Build the West:
Virtual Tour: Scenes from the Alamo
This weeks theme is Pop Art in the form of Western art.
Featured Image: Billy Schenck, Throwing a Loop, Oil on canvas
Click here for the blog entry.
Featured Gallery: Night of Artists is a true representation of what Western art is today. The two subcategories, traditional and modern can be seen throughout the exhibition on the second and third floors of the Jack Guenther Pavilion and virtually on our website.
Click here to view our online gallery
How the West was Fun: Coloring Sheets featuring modern Western artists Billy Schenck and Logan Maxwell Hagege. Click on the titles of the works to open in a new window and print.
More About the Artists in the Craft: The question of what is Western art is always complex. Though most commonly identified with realistic representations of cowboys and Native Americans, modernists who found inspiration in the landscape and the issues that threaten it have also found meaningful ways to express their sense of identity within the West. One of those ways has been through the lens of Pop art.
Click here to read the blog entry.
The Cowboy Way: It’s Cowboy Coffee, the modern way! While you’re spending some time at home, learn how they made a “cup of joe” on the open range. Watch the video and let us know how your coffee turned out by posting on social media! Tag @BriscoeMuseum and use the hashtags #TheWestStartsHere and #CowboyCoffee
Help us bring the spirit of the West alive by becoming a Briscoe Partner!
Click here to become a member!
Engage with art and artifacts in new ways: access contextual images, watch short videos, learn more about artists.
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