Two new exhibitions focusing on Comanche Chief Quanah Parker and Texas artist Frank Reaugh will open with a public reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 8) at the National Ranching Heritage Center (NRHC), 3121 Fourth Street.
“Both men shared the same time period in history, loved the same land and became part of the history of that land,” said Dr. Scott White, NRHC director of collections, exhibits and research.
The reception will include a presentation by Parker’s great-grandson, Bruce Parker, from Albuquerque, N.M. He will perform a Comanche smoke blessing for the opening of the Native American exhibit. In addition, Austin filmmaker Marla Fields will discuss her documentary film, “Frank Reaugh: Pastel Poet of the Texas Plains.” The film is being shown from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday during the Flatlanders Film Festival at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts.
To celebrate the exhibition of artifacts that once belonged to Quanah Parker, the Texas Plains Trail Region has temporarily placed a Quanah Parker Trail Arrow on the front lawn of the NRHC, making it one of more than 70 Panhandle locations with a tie to the last chief of the greatest tribe in America.
“Only the Smithsonian Institute has a larger collection of Comanche artifacts than the National Ranching Heritage Center,” White said. “To preserve these very old and delicate artifacts, we keep them in a temperature-controlled room and rarely handle them. This is only the second time in 13 years that we have put some of the items on display.”
White said that Parker and Reaugh shared 50 years in time and a love for the southern Great Plains. Quanah was both a Native American warrior and peacemaker who lived on the southern Plains, and Reaugh was an artist who devoted his career to painting the southern Plains.”
Reaugh lived long enough to see himself referred to as “Dean of Texas Artists,” White said. He created more than 7,000 works of art, primarily in small plein air pastel sketches. “Frank Reaugh: View from the Easel” is an exhibit of 120 of Reaugh’s works. His interest in Western art was less on the human side than in the natural environment and animals, particularly the Texas Longhorn.
“Buckskin and Beads: Native American Clothing and Artifacts” is an exhibit addressing the unique friendship between Quanah and the Texas cattlemen, especially the Burk Burnett family of the Four Sixes Ranch. The exhibit features clothing and artifacts Quanah gave to three generations of the Burnett family and also includes clothing and artifacts from other Plains tribes.
(News release from the National Ranching Heritage Center)