Duty, Michael (W.) 1951-

views updated

DUTY, Michael (W.) 1951-

PERSONAL:

Born June 16, 1951, in Wichita Falls, TX; son of Glenn Elias and Margie L. (McCoy) Duty; married Cathy Stevens, November 27, 1976 (divorced, January, 1986); children: Brynne Marie, Jorden Stevens. Education: Midwestern University, B.A., 1973; M.A., 1975; University of Oklahoma, postgraduate study.

ADDRESSES:

Office—National Center for American Western Art, Kerrville, TX 78029. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Museum director. Midwestern University, teaching assistant in English, 1973-75; Lamar University, Beaumont, TX, instructor in English, 1975-76; University of Oklahoma English department, teaching associate 1976; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, director of public relations and development, 1977-81; Wichita Falls (Texas) Museum and Art Center, director, 1981-83; Rockwell Museum and Center for Western Art, Corning, NY, director, 1983-87; Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art, Indianapolis, IN, executive director, 1987-2001; National Center for American Western Art, Kerrville, TX, executive director, 2001—. Eiteljorg Museum, Rockwell Museum, Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center, teacher; member of advisory panel for collections, archives and libraries for development of Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian; founding member, vice president, secretary of Museums West; member of panel on museum programs for Indian Arts Commission; member of task force on audience development, Indianapolis Art Commission; member, Cultural Consortium of Indianapolis; board member, Indian Alliance for Arts Education; lecturer, Sotheby's American Arts Program; member, planning commission for American Studies curriculum, Elmira College.

WRITINGS:

Santa Fe Watercolor Society Inaugural Exhibition: Millicent Rogers Museum, Santa Fe Watercolor Society (Santa Fe, NM), 1992.

Cowboy Artists of America, Greenwich Workshop (Shelton, CT), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Michael Duty is executive director of the National Center for American Western Art in Kerrville, Texas. He has been the director of several leading Western art museums, including the Rockwell Museum in Corning, New York, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, and the California Historical Society. He is noted for his expertise in the field of Western art and history

In Cowboy Artists of America, Duty presents 250 high-quality reproductions of paintings depicting figures of the Old West: mountain men, stagecoach drivers, soldiers, cowboys, and Native Americans. The techniques used in the paintings vary from photographic realism to semi-Impressionistic renderings, and they vary in emotional content from ennobling the subjects to sentimentalizing them. Duty provides biographical sketches of the contributing artists, and notes that many of them learned about the details of ranch work or herding cattle by working on ranches.