Friendships across the United
States built the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society’s Southwestern art
collection over its 100-year history (1921-2021) Beginning
in 1933, when the Society’s museum opened, fine art objects entered the
collection through the friendship of Clarendon, Texas, artist H. D.
Bugbee and New Jersey collector Susan Janney Allen when their paths
crossed in New Mexico. In 1942 James D. Hamlin of Farwell, Texas, gave
his extensive art collection followed by Wichita Falls, Texas,
rancher Johnie Powelson Griffin who gave her collection in
1962 largely because of her friendship with Bugbee. Subsequent
“friendings” by patrons over the next decades culminated in the Georgia
O’Keeffe Foundation’s gift of O’Keeffe’s
Red Landscape in
1994. The Museum created the Friends of Southwestern Art in 1996 (25 years
old in 2021) to maintain and cultivate old and new friendships. More
recent friends include Dr. Charles K. and Phyllis Hendrick of Amarillo,
Jay Matsler of Lubbock, Nancy and Bob Josserand of Hereford, Carol
and David Farmer of Dallas, and Charlene and Bill Wallace of Amarillo, who
have helped build one of the finest Southwestern art collections in the
country.