Downtown Fort Worth museum refreshes and reopens after 15 months
June 8,2021
See full CultureMap article by Stephanie Allmon Merry here.
The Sid Richardson Museum in downtown Fort Worth has finally reopened after its 15-month pandemic slumber.
The Sundance Square Western art museum reopened on Monday, June 7 with a new exhibit called "Picturing the American West" presented in person and virtually. (Launch the 360-degree virtual tour here.)
"We are open, y'all!," they posted on Facebook June 7. "We're so excited to welcome visitors back into the museum."
"Picturing the American West" groups works in the Sid Richardson's permanent collection into four themes: The Bison and Plains Indian Culture; Western Archetypes; Cowboys and Native Americans; and Twilight into Night.
Works by American painters Frederic Remington and Charles Russell dominate the exhibition, they say on the website, but "the core collection is complemented by a significant group of paintings by other Western artists from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. An additional selection of bronzes by both Remington and Russell are also part of the exhibit on loan from a private collection."
The museum has undergone some cosmetic transformations since it closed in March 2020. Namely, the gift shop is gone. The area is now a gallery space. There's also new lighting and a new arrangement of the collection throughout the museum.
Museum director Scott Winterrowd tells Glasstire that they last exhibition was open just three days before the COVID-19 shutdown.
"While we were closed to in-person visitors, we were fortunate to be able to shift to virtual programming and engage our audience in new ways,” Winterrowd says in the interview. "We are very excited about welcoming our visitors back into the museum. When it comes to works of art, nothing beats the in-person experience ..."
While admission to the Sid Richardson is free, reservations are required for entry to the museum, which is operating at limited capacity. Maximum group size per reservation is 15 people. Tours are not available at this time.
Reservations are available in 45-minute increments Monday through Saturday, 10 am-4 pm.
The museum is at 309 Main. St. For more information about the museum, its programs, and reservations, visit the website.