Charles M. Russell Center

Charles M. Russell Center Founded in 1998, the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West is the first such university-based program in the nation. The Charles M.

Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West is typically open by appointment only, during Monday - Friday, 9 am - 4 pm. Please call 405-325-5939 for appointments. The center, which opened to the public in the fall of 1999, is dedicated to the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge in the field of American art history as it relates to the western United States. Through its resource cen

ter, national symposia, course offerings and related outreach programs, the Russell Center actively engages students and the public in developing a better understanding of, and appreciation for, 19th- and 20th-century
Euro-American and Native American artistic traditions. Special emphasis is given to art of Charles M. Russell and his contemporaries. The Russell Center was established concurrently with the Charles Marion Russell Chair, an endowed professorship in art history at the University of Oklahoma. Both the center and the endowed chair were made possible through a generous gift from the Nancy Russell Trust and matching funds from the state of Oklahoma. Administered through the School of Art and Art History and the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts, the Russell Center operates in concert with several of the University of Oklahoma’s other distinguished branches including the Western History Collections, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural
History, and the departments of History, Literature, Native American Studies and Film and Video Studies. The Russell Center also actively interfaces with institutions across the country, including museums of Western art and universities that support related programs or collections of Western material culture or art. The Russell Center is both a facility and a program designed to inspire and excite interest in the study of American Western art, an aesthetic history that enjoys both a regional and a national dimension. While a branch of American art, Western art also incorporates European artistic traditions that have, over time, been adapted to themes, experiences and environments unique to the western United States. Art of the American West also encompasses Native American cultures as both
subjects of art and as creative forces. During much of America’s history, the West has been a defining national symbol. Although considered a region by Euro-Americans, the West was also a myth, a dream and inspiration, a collection of individual experiences, a process of westering and a destination. For Native Americans, however, process and destination played little part in their thinking. For them, the West was something spiritual as well as physical, a sacred domain as well as a common home. The center’s course of study in the art of the American West seeks to discover what the
West symbolized and to whom and why.

03/26/2026
Come to this great event on Monday, March 23 at the Charles M. Russell Center (409 W Boyd, 2-story red-brick building, 4...
03/19/2026

Come to this great event on Monday, March 23 at the Charles M. Russell Center (409 W Boyd, 2-story red-brick building, 405-325-5939)!

Come to this exciting event at the Russell Center! 1-2:30 pm, March 4, at Russell Center (Old Faculty Club, 409 W. Boyd ...
02/27/2026

Come to this exciting event at the Russell Center! 1-2:30 pm, March 4, at Russell Center (Old Faculty Club, 409 W. Boyd St.). Mark your calendars!

Now open through next Friday!Skulls on the Prairie: New Work by Figurative Sculpture Students.Includes work by:Seph Tras...
10/31/2024

Now open through next Friday!

Skulls on the Prairie: New Work by Figurative Sculpture Students.

Includes work by:
Seph Trask
Aubrey Leigh Crilly
Avito Nzeki Mailu
Sophie Anne Miller
Maxwell Bennet Kuykendall
Salem Josilyn Mara Dairymple
Jillian Paige Macias
Mia Krista Vinson

Questions: Russell Center 405-325-5939 or [email protected]

You are Invited!Title: Travel from Home: the Legacy of Stereoviews in Contemporary Virtual Technology Selections from th...
10/25/2024

You are Invited!
Title: Travel from Home: the Legacy of Stereoviews in Contemporary Virtual Technology Selections from the Rebecca Rickard Collection
Description: Opening and Curator Talk with Seda Propes (Art History Undergraduate Student). This project was funded by a 2024 Provost’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (UReCA) Summer Fellowship.
Time: 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Location: Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West (Old Faculty Club) 409 West Boyd Street, Norman, OK 73069
Questions and parking info: Russell Center @ 405-325-5939 or [email protected]

You Are Invited!Title: Land, Community and Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Art: Holly Wilson and Zachary Miller in Co...
10/25/2024

You Are Invited!
Title: Land, Community and Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Art: Holly Wilson and Zachary Miller in Conversation with Denise Neil, PhD.
Description: Roundtable discussion on layers in art making and cultural production by Native American artists in Oklahoma Holly Wilson (Delaware Nation/Lenape) and Zachary Miller (Chickasaw Nation), moderated by art historian Denise Neil (Delaware Tribe/Cherokee Nation); cosponsored with First American Art Magazine, followed by reception and dinner
Time: 5-7 p.m.
Date: Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Location:Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West (Old Faculty Club) 409 West Boyd Street, Norman, OK 73069
Please RSVP as seating is limited [event is in-person only with dinner]
https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSfLIWFwwAc.../viewform...
Questions and parking info: Russell Center 405-325-5939

You Are Invited! 7 pm, Mon., Oct. 21, 2024 at the Charles M. Russell Center (409 W. Boyd St., Norman, OK 73069). No admi...
10/17/2024

You Are Invited! 7 pm, Mon., Oct. 21, 2024 at the Charles M. Russell Center (409 W. Boyd St., Norman, OK 73069). No admission charge. Open event with RSVP preferred as seating is limited: [email protected].

Come to Oct. 2024 Russell Center Events: 15th (5-7 pm, Bekele Mekonnen "Artist Talk and Testimonial on Ethiopian Moderni...
10/08/2024

Come to Oct. 2024 Russell Center Events: 15th (5-7 pm, Bekele Mekonnen "Artist Talk and Testimonial on Ethiopian Modernist Painter in Oklahoma, Gebrekristos Desta" plus dinner), 16th (1:30-3 pm, Kathleen A. Brosnan, Ph.D. "Bottled Depression: The Vineyard, the Curriculum and Settler Colonialism"), 21st (7-8 pm, Abby Mikalauskas "Taos 2024: The Summer of La Luz and Mystery Beadwork") & Oct 29th (5-7 pm, "Land, Community, and Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Art: Holly Wilson and Zachary Miller in Conversation with Denise Neil" plus dinner). Questions=405-325-5939 Russell Center or [email protected]. Please RSVP for dinners by Thursday before the event.

Artist Talk and Testimonial on Ethiopian Modernist Painter in Oklahoma, Gebrekristos DestaIn 1979, Ethiopian abstract pa...
10/03/2024

Artist Talk and Testimonial on Ethiopian Modernist Painter in Oklahoma, Gebrekristos Desta
In 1979, Ethiopian abstract painter Gebre Kristos Desta, who was celebrated for large geometric abstract paintings, fled Ethiopia under a violent political regime. In early 1980, he settled in Lawton, Oklahoma as a refugee supported by Catholic Charities, where he lived and made work for the last year of his life. Join contemporary Ethiopian artist, Bekele Mekonnen, director of the Gebrekristos Desta Art Center at Addis Ababa University, for an artist’s talk and celebration of the legacy of Gebre Kristos Desta as he collaborates with OU students on a mural for downtown Norman. A complimentary dinner for RSVP attendees will follow the event. Sponsored by the Norman Arts Council and African Studies Institute, OU. Event is 5-7 pm, on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, at the Charles M. Russell Center in the Old Faculty Club at 409 West Boyd Street, Norman, OK 73069-4826. Questions: Russell Center at 405-325-5939.
Please RSVP by 5 pm on Thursday, October 10, 2024 [[email protected] or link to Google form below]
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScfPe5TpZHXcnwVDChUpCbqKsKk2BYB3gs8Mcb393yoE3eqRQ/viewform?usp=pp_url

Hope you can join us for today's event! Room 101 at 409 West Boyd in Norman (Old Faculty Club red brick building behind ...
09/25/2024

Hope you can join us for today's event! Room 101 at 409 West Boyd in Norman (Old Faculty Club red brick building behind University President's home). Questions 405-325-5939 Russell Center

Address

409 W Boyd Street
Norman, OK
73019

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 4pm
Tuesday 8am - 4pm
Wednesday 8am - 4pm
Thursday 8am - 4am
Friday 8am - 4am

Telephone

+14053255939

Website

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