Sangre de Cristo Arts & Conference Center -- All of the Arts for All of Southern Colorado

Visual Arts: Francis King Collection of Western Art

The Francis King Collection of Western Art was founded upon the generous donation of collector Francis E. King of Pueblo in 1979. The collection originally consisted of one hundred paintings and one bronze sculpture. At that time, it was one of the largest gifts ever given by an individual to the city and county of Pueblo. Today the collection has grown to over 425 pieces.

The collection spans over one hundred-fifty years of Western history and represents a rich diversity of styles and subject matter. It begins with artist Joseph Hitchins in 1825, and includes such greats as Gerald Cassidy, John Clymer, Gerard C. Delano, Frank Tenney Johnson, William Moyers, O. C. Seltzer, and Harvey Otis Young.
All of the Taos Society of Artists comprising the Western American art colony are represented in this collection including: Kenneth Miller Adams, Oscar E. Berninghaus, E. L. Blumenschein, E. Irving Couse, Herbert Dunton, E. Martin Hennings, Victor Higgins, Bert Geer Phillips, Joseph H. Sharp, and Walter Ufer.

Also present in our collection are contemporary western artists. Through the eyes of all these artists, we gain an insight into the spirit and color of the West, vividly recreating the world of the open-range cowboy, the Indians, the buffalo, the trappers, traders and scouts, the settlers, the railroads, the rugged mountains, plains and deserts — a romantic and picturesque record of a period unique to America.