RENO, NEVADA.- The Nevada Museum of Art (NMA) will present Mapping the Pacific Coast: Coronado to Lewis and Clark, the Quivira Collection, from February 13 through April 17, 2005. Mapping the Pacific Coast documents the mapping of the West Coast of North America before the Lewis and Clark Expedition as illustrated by a selection of maps, books and illustrations dating from 1544 to 1802. Organized by the Sonoma County Museum, the exhibition draws on the on the private collection of Henry and Holly Wendt, founders of Quivira Estate Vineyards and Winery.

Mapping the Pacific Coast invites visitors on a voyage beginning with the first exploration of the West Coast by Europeans and leads to Thomas Jefferson’s commission of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery from 1804 to 1806. The exhibition traces one of the greatest adventures in history, including dangerous ocean voyages by Spanish, French, English and Russian explorers, the race to discover the Northwest Passage, sightings of “sea monsters,” and the very first contacts between Native Americans and Europeans. Many of the documents included in the exhibition are particularly relevant to the West, with references to explorers such as Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, Sir Francis Drake, and Captain James Cook, all of whom left their mark on the Pacific Coast. These histories are told through original maps and illustrations — the earliest being woodcuts and the majority being copperplate engravings.

“The Quivira Collection represents an unusual and important private collection of antique maps,” said Dr. Ronald Grim, Principal Curator, Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. “This collection, with its emphasis on mapping the northern Pacific Coast during one of the most dramatic periods of exploration, fills a niche not addressed in any of the several major exhibits that will take place across the U.S. in honor of the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.”

The Wendt’s interest in collecting antique maps began in 1962 when Henry ventured into a shop in Tokyo and became intrigued by a beautifully rendered 17th century map of South Asia. An ardent history buff (with a degree in the subject from Princeton) and a lifelong sailor, Henry saw in the map the excitement of a society fascinated by exploration, its rapidly growing knowledge of the world, and enlivened by a willingness to fill in the gaps with imagined dreams and fears. The purchase of that map became the first step in a long journey to establish a world-class collection.

The Wendts founded Quivira Estate Vineyards & Winery in Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Valley in 1981. It was the appearance of the word “Quivira” on 16th and 17th century maps that led the Wendts to research the mystical kingdom thought by the earliest explorers and cartographers to exist in the far West, and ultimately to adopt Quivira as the name of their winery.