Bang! Bang!
As we step into 2026, we are kicking the new year off with a very large bang. This issue includes our substantial Western Auction Directory and State of the Art: Arizona, and then also our annual Collector’s Focus: The Contemporary West. Add to that our coverage of the Coors Western Art Exhibit, as well as all the great gallery and museum previews, and what you have is a mighty fine mixture of Western art and culture within these pages.
Another event happening this month is taking place far, far away from the West. In New York City, Christie’s will offer bidders selections from the William I. Koch Collection, one of the most prestigious private Western collections ever assembled. The sale will include major masterpieces from Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, N.C. Wyeth, Alfred Jacob Miller and many others. Estimates for the sale are at $50 million, and early buzz suggests that may be a conservative number. If it hits that total, it will go down in the record books as the single greatest Western sale in American art history.
Tylee Abbott, who is running the sale for Christie’s, remarks in our article that he is not sure who will be bidding on these pieces—either seasoned Western fans or collectors of American art. Notice the subtle difference in what he’s saying? I think it’s an important distinction. The community around this art form is strong and growing, but it also frequently transcends outside of the genre that contains it, which is why a work by Frederic Remington looks so great hanging next to art by Howard Terpning, Maynard Dixon, Frank Tenney Johnson and Joe Beeler, but also, and with equal importance, next to work by Mary Cassatt, Willem de Kooning, Edward Hopper and William Trost Richards. Western art is part of a larger American story, and sales like the Christie’s auction have a way of emphasizing it.
The truth of the matter is that there is no formula for the “Western art collector.” They can be someone stepping off the open range with a saddle slung over their shoulder, spurs jangling and a lasso on their hip. They can also be city dwellers who only see horses in books, magazines and in the paintings on their walls and the bronzes on their mantles. There is no formula because it can be anyone who has an interest in the history, imagery or culture of the American West. That’s all it takes.
Michael Clawson
Executive Editor
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