WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.- William H. Truettner, senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum will discuss "Creating and Collecting the Old West" at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute on Sunday, March 2, at 2 pm. The lecture is free.

Discover how the Old West became a familiar part of America's national identity through the creations of Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, and other artists and writers, while at the same time Western art emerged as an independent field for collecting and scholarship.

Truettner has been a curator of painting and sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum since 1965. His research interests include 18th- and 19th-century American painting, George Catlin, and art of the American West. Truettner has organized a number of groundbreaking exhibitions including Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory, Thomas Cole: Landscape into History, and The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920. Truettner holds a bachelor's degree from Williams College (1957) and a master's degree (1959) in art history from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Frederic Remington shaped America's vision of the West with illustrations, sculpture, and painting. Remington Looking West brings together the Clark's iconic works by the artist with those from public and private collections to explore how he came to this vision and how it evolved throughout his career. Also included in the exhibition are photographs, drawings, and scrapbooks from his personal collection that allow you to "look over Remington's shoulder" and understand his working process. Remington Looking West is on view February 17 through May 4.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm (daily in July and August). Admission is free November through May. Admission June 1 through October 31 is $12.50 for adults, free for children 18 and younger, members, and students with valid ID. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu.