The Stark Museum of Art

The Stark Museum of Art is located in Orange, Texas and celebrates the American West. In fact, they boast one of the most significant collections of American Western Art. It was started from a collection of art collectors H.J. Lutcher Stark and his mother, Miriam Lutcher Stark. Lutcher Stark had the dream of displaying his art in a museum one day and his particular focus was on American Western Art. His dream eventually became the Stark Museum of Art.


Stark Museum of Art - Photo

Lutcher Stark’s wife, Nelda, shared her husband’s passion for American Western Art. The two of them spent their lives collecting and building the fine museum we are able to visit and enjoy today. Among the many contributions the Stark’s made in their lives, they also established the Stark Foundation in 1961 as a non-profit charitable corporation set up to continue the philantropic legacy of the Stark’s life work. The foundations offers grants and scholarships to assist in education and to assist in the work of the purpose of the foundation, which is to improve the lives of the people of Southeast Texas through encouraging, promoting and assisting education, the arts, and health and human services.

The museum, along with other properties, helps to keep the foundation solvent and fulling its purpose.

In front of the museum is a lifesize replica of Buck McCain’s ‘The Invocation’. The sculpture is of a Plains Indian holding up a buffalo skull in prayer for the preservation of his people. The artist is quoted as saying that the sculpture represents ‘the moment when human aspiration soars and we rise above our daily lives.’


Stark Museum of Art - Photo

The End of the Trail is a beautiful bronze by James Fraser. You can see it in the foreground of the photo above. We have a replica of that piece and love it. The details and the emotion portrayed in that sculpture are breathtaking.

Both of the individual pieces I have mentioned are in the Western Art collection at the museum. Other collections include American Indian Art, Decorative Art and Rare Books and Manuscripts. I love just browsing through the collections and enjoying the beautiful depictions of the American West. I think you might enjoy it too. Visit their website and browe through the collections and exhibits. Better yet, visit the museum in person when you are going through Orange, Texas!