For 54 years, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum has held an annual show devoted to the top artists working in the West. It would be safe to assume that, after 54 years, the show would get easier to put together. But the work that goes into the Prix de Westnever stops, and “easy” is certainly not part of the vocabulary.
Tom Browning, Spring Pass, oil, 26 x 38 in.“The status of the show and where it sits within the culture of the American West is something we think about all the time. We never want to rest on our laurels. We go to many of the shows and see what kind of great events are being presented, so we know what’s out there,” says Susan Roeder, Prix de West committee chair. “We’re very fortunate we have this great space to invite so many artists and collectors, and we’re also fortunate that when the artists are invited to the Prix de West, they tell us the same thing—that being in the show is the pinnacle of their careers. We don’t take that lightly. We appreciate that and want every show to be the best one yet.”
The Prix de West returns to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City on June 5 and runs through July 12. Although the show is open for more than a month, collectors are urged to attend the art sale weekend, from June 12 and 13, when all the artwork will be available for purchase and many of the artists will be in attendance in the museum’s galleries.
James Morgan, Stories in Stone, oil on linen, 20 x 30 in.Events kick off on June 12 with educational programming in the museum’s grand Sam Noble Events Center: Kim Wiggins will lead a discussion titled “The Iconic West,” followed by the panel “Resilience: The Life and Grand Canyon Art of Curt Walters,” and a presentation with David A. Leffel and Sherrie McGraw titled “Why Do I Like This?” (Editor’s note: I will be leading the Q&A session with Walters.) A lunch will be served between the second and third presentations. That evening, the museum will host a preview cocktail reception.
The following day, June 13, will feature a morning presentation with James Morgan, the winner of the 2025 Prix de West Museum Purchase Award, followed by a lunch and an awards ceremony. After the programing and lunch, Thomas Blackshear II and Sean Michael Chavez will be offering art demonstrations. The evening festivities start at 5 p.m. with the fixed-price, box-draw sale. Bidders have 90 minutes to get their ballots in the boxes before the 6:30 p.m. draw. After the sale, events shift to the ballroom, where the museum presents a dinner and additional awards.
Tim Cherry, Dreams of Salmon, bronze on walnut pedestal, ed. of 18, 67 x 32 x 10 in. Around 90 artists will be showing more than 300 pieces of art. The show represents some of the best artwork being created in the Western genre. “Prix de West brings together the finest Western artists working today,” says Susan Patterson, curator of special exhibits at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. “With artists whose careers have helped define the exhibition and new voices joining us for the first time, the 2026 show will capture the depth, innovation and narrative power that makes Western art so compelling. Nearly 300 works will be featured.”
R.S. Riddick, We Saddle Up Rain or Shine, oil, 12 x 9 in.
Morgan Weistling, a frequent award winner at the Prix de West, will be showing Rush Hour,1887, a painting with 23 figures in a bustling town scene. “In Rush Hour, 1887, I portray the pulse of a frontier town at its busiest—stagecoaches arriving, townsfolk crossing paths and watchful eyes measuring strangers,” Weistling says. “The street becomes a meeting ground of labor, commerce and quiet tension. These moments defined the Old West, where opportunity and danger moved side by side in the dust and sunlight of everyday life.”
Morgan Weistling, Rush Hour, 1887, oil on linen, 24 x 48 in.
Kim Wiggins, How the West Was Won, Chisum at Castle Gap, oil, 60 x 48 in.
Kim Wiggins will be showing How the West Was Won, one of his famous cattle paintings. “In 1866, cattle kings Chisum, Goodnight and Loving drove 3,000 longhorns west, establishing the most famous cattle trail in American history. The epic drive helped shape the legend of the American cowboy and inspired works like Red River and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. This painting shows John Chisum and Wild West icon Frank Chisum battling to control a massive stampede at Castle Gap near the Pecos River in southern Texas after crossing 80 miles of harsh desert,” Wiggins writes about the piece. “…The most dangerous part of the journey was crossing [that] 80-mile span of dry desert wasteland between the Concho River and Castle Gap. In the hot merciless sun, the cattle could only last three days without water. By the second night the cattle were so restless that the cattle kings determined to drive them straight through, night and day, to the Pecos. In the early hours of the third day, the cattle picked up the scent of moisture in the air as they entered Castle Gap, about 12 miles from the Pecos River. The cattle became crazed and unmanageable at the first scent of water and broke into a tumultuous stampede. Knowing they could never hold the herd under these circumstances, Chisum determined to let the wild-eyed herd desperately run the final 12 miles under a chaotic sky.”
Abigail Gutting, Collision, oil on linen, 30 x 40 in.
Robert Peters, A Boundless Land, Monument Valley, oil on linen, 28 x 50 in.In Robert Peters’ painting A Boundless Land, Monument Valley, the artist depicts a classic Western landscape. “Monument Valley’s boundless splendor never ceases to astound me,” he says. “Each season in the valley is breathtaking in its own unique way. I find it impossible to resist the allure of its enormous buttes and dramatic skies.”
Painter Eric Bowman, in his piece Distant Daughter, painted a father and his child under fall foliage in New Mexico. “This is the third and final symbolic painting in a series inspired by our beautiful daughter, Lily. It depicts the emotional distance between us that warms and cools as she matures. Fathers and daughters have a special bond, though at times it is strained with growing pains and misunderstanding,” he says. “The letting go that seems inevitable with coming of age is not just a personal memoir, but a universal transition many fathers and daughters must endure until the healing of time and love ultimately win.”
Carrie Ballantyne, Tools of the Trade, oil on linen, 22 x 16 in.
Left: Brett Allen Johnson, Cast Shadows, oil, 40 x 22 in. Top right: Eric Bowman, Distant Daughter, oil, 48 x 48 in. Bottom right: Howard Post, The New Remuda, oil, 48 x 36 in.
Other works in the show include a remarkable gem of a cowboy painting from R.S. Riddick, stunning cowboy portraits from Carrie Ballantyne, horse paintings by Abigail Gutting, new landscapes from John Moyers and a female figure with flowers from Terri Kelly Moyers, and a Brett Allen Johnson’s Cast Shadows, which shows two blankets arranged against a pueblo wall underneath a brilliant sky.
New artists in this year’s show are Dustin Payne, Kevin Red Star and Jessica L. Bryant. Walt Gonske, whose impressionist works of the Southwest are treasured by collectors, is returning for his 50th Prix de West. —
Prix de West
June 12-13, 2026
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
1700 Northeast 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73111
(405) 478-2250 pdw.nationalcowboymuseum.org
Powered by Froala Editor
