OMAHA.- The Joslyn Art Museum presents the exhibit Legends of the West: The Foxley Collection through February 25, 2007. For the past 30 years, Bill Foxley, cattleman, industry innovator, and art collector, has been acquiring American Western art that spans a period of over 125 years. His collection emphasizes such luminaries as Charles M. Russell, Frederic Remington, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and Maynard Dixon — legendary artists of the American West who fueled the imagination with their imagery of cowboys, native peoples, and Western landscapes. Legends of the West features some of the very best works from the Foxley Collection, one of the most important of its kind in the world.

Bill Foxley built one of the largest cattle and feeding companies in the U.S., with sizable ranches and innovative feed lots in Texas, California, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and other locations. Starting in the early 1960s with an inheritance from his father, who was also a cattleman based in Omaha, Foxley grew the company into a very successful business while at the same time discovering his love for important American Western art. By 1983, his collection included almost 125 works. That same year, he opened the Museum of Western Art in Denver, Colorado, to the public. Located in the historic Navarre Building, he personally financed the museum until 1998 when it closed. It was the first of its kind in Denver, with educational programs and tours that encouraged an appreciation for the art of the West. Since that time, Foxley has continued quietly acquiring important works of American Western art. He is a passionate and knowledgeable collector and self-taught historian who understands the fleeting definitions and sometimes underappreciated form and content constituting what has become one of the most strident markets in the art world, the art of the American West.

Legends of the West at Joslyn features 56 works, including paintings and some sculpture, selected from the Foxley Collection and representing the great span of artists, styles, and subject matter of the American West from around 1832 to 1940. Featured artists include Albert Bierstadt, Karl Bodmer, Edward Borein, Maynard Dixon, Henry Farny, Frank Tenney Johnson, William Robinson Leigh, Richard Lorenz, Charles Christian Nahl, Thomas Moran, Frederic S. Remington, Charles M. Russell, Charles Schreyvogel, and Grant Wood. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and narrative essay.

The Cowboy Corral, a special exhibition resource area for young visitors at the end of the show, offers a variety of engaging exhibition-related activities in a rustic setting. Children will enjoy mounting a saddle, handling horse and cowboy gear, reading and composing their own cowboy poetry, braiding leather, and choosing a recipe for at-home cowboy cookin'. The Cowboy Corral is open during regular Museum hours.