Welcoming visitors into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s permanent Western gallery space this December is Find Your Western. Taking over the museum’s west hallway, the micro-exhibition explores the portrayal of the West through popular media from silent films and the heydays of the Western film genre to now. Find Your Western will include a variety of media—including paper archival materials, movie posters, production booklets, film clips, costumes and even comic books—broadening the horizons of what it means to be a “Western.” 
Pancho Villa. Scotia International, 1972. Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. RC2006.067.2.03192
“I think visitors will be surprised to see a lot of the things on display,” says Nathan Jones, the museum’s associate curator of cowboy culture.
He adds that Find Your Western will not be the “traditional interpretation” of the West. While the exhibition will still feature classic Western films like The Shootist and Stagecoach, for example, it will also survey Western themes presented in contemporary films such as Toy Story and Back to the Future Part III. 
Inside the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
“In a lot of cases [the Western genre] is fairly vibrant still,” says Jones. “There’s still a volume of Westerns being produced, but there’s a little bit more nuance and a little bit more substance to the stories being told. This is a chance for people to see a different perspective on what the West is.”
Find Your Western will be on view from December 14, 2019 through May 10, 2020. For more information, visit nationalcowboymuseum.org. —
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