Central to the mission of The Sid Richardson Museum is a commitment to serving the public. The Museum strives to offer its visitors an enhanced understanding and appreciation of its collection, and the variety of cultures and ideas the art objects represent and evoke.
Rather than attempt to offer a tour of the entire collection, Museum staff teaches with a limited number of carefully selected objects. Tours are age appropriate, inquiry-based, and thematic. Through close and careful viewing, we hope that visitors will learn that it takes time to see a work of art, and that extended engagement can be rewarding.
Students are encouraged to respond more thoughtfully to works of art, to use their own observations to investigate ideas about art and culture, and to become more confident and skilled in using museums as a resource for lifelong learning.
Visitors are actively engaged in dialogue about the art objects and encouraged to provide criteria for their interpretations. Gallery discussion might center around the object's subject matter, formal elements and principles, context, and the meanings communicated by the object.
The artwork represented in the collection provides an entry into an understanding of how Frederic Remington, Charles Russell and their contemporaries responded to life in late 19th- and early 20th-century America, as well as an opportunity to make connections with the ideas, feelings, and values of people living today.
Museum staff also make site visits to share the Collection through slides and prints. The focus of these site visits may be tailored to meet the specific curriculum needs of either the art specialist or the classroom teacher.
In addition, thematic teacher packets which include slides, inquiry sheets, a chronology, and classroom activities are available for those educators who are unable to bring their students to the Museum. Teacher packets are offered in the following themes: The First Americans; Home on the Range; Pathways; Pioneers, Prospectors, and Native Peoples; Battlefields and Bugle Calls; From Sunup Till Sundown; and Heroes of the Old West.
A fee to borrow educational materials will be charged only if materials are not returned.
Thematic postcard tours are available to families visiting the museum.