The Board of Directors of The Museum of Western Art is pleased to dedicate its outstanding library to the founding director of the Museum, Griff C. Carnes. Griff has donated to the Museum his personal papers related to the founding of the Museum, then the Cowboy Artists of America Museum. The dedication will take place on Thursday, October 26, 2017, at 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, although any monetary donations can be made that will go toward conservation supplies to care for the collection.

Griff Carnes, a Brady native and graduate of Southern Methodist University, worked in the banking field for 35 years. A Korean War veteran in the Air Force, he began his work with the Museum in about 1980. “I had always had a love for Western art and history,” he said. “In a meeting with Bill Burford at Texas Art Gallery in Dallas, he told me about a new cowboy art museum starting up in Kerrville, and I was hooked. John Duncan, the first Chairman of the Board, hired me.”

Griff is an honorary member of the Cowboy Artists of America and a founding board member of the Former Texas Rangers Foundation. He retired from the Museum in 1989 and still resides in Kerrville.
Griff kept all correspondence and records related to the Museum’s beginnings. These include hand-written thank-you letters from artists such as Martin Grelle, Bill Nebeker, Gary Niblett, Howard Terpning, and many other notables of Western art. Griff has donated all of these materials to the Permanent Collection of the Museum.

Stephanie Turnham, Executive Director of the Museum, said, “We are so honored to have this important collection, which will eventually be available for research. And while our wine and cheese dedication is free and open to the public, we welcome any monetary contributions which will go into a restricted fund to provide for acid-free tissue, folders and boxes to adequately care for the collection.”

For more information about the event, please contact the Museum at 830.896.2553.