mannequins dressed as old west figures

The Original Imagination Gallery: A Look Back

Supposedly, cowboys and cowgirls don’t cry. But we all dabbed our eyes with a bandanna when we closed the Autry’s classic Ted and Marian Craver Imagination Gallery for approximately a year of renovations. We are excited to refresh our “Spirit of Imagination” after 33 years, protecting the artifacts and updating the themes and design. In the meantime, we are proud to present this virtual look back at the original Imagination Gallery. 

Virtual Tour of the Imagination Gallery

Experience this walk-through virtual tour of the Imagination gallery! Please pardon our dust, as this experience was “filmed” after the museum had closed to the public due to the pandemic. Presented courtesy of PBS Engineers, Inc. 

a gallery now gone in the museum about western lifestyle

Autry Artists Salon and Imagined Wests

Enjoy this recent conversation with artist Lewis deSoto (Cahuilla ancestry) and Josh Garrett-Davis, Gamble Associate Curator of Western History, Popular Culture, and Firearms. Garrett-Davis speaks with Lewis deSoto about his monumental piece Cahuilla (2006), a transformed 1980s pickup truck that will serve as an anchor in the new core exhibition Imagined Wests, located in the Craver Imagination Gallery. The discussion includes a sneak preview of that exhibition-in-development about popular culture storytelling of the American West. 

a middle aged man with glasses

Tabletop Frontier: A Hand-Carved Model of a Mythic Old West Town

In this short video, the Autry’s Chief Conservator, Richard Moll, shows off a miniature Old West town hand carved by artist Gene Hoback. A working cowboy on California ranches as well as on movie sets, Hoback sold meticulous models to collectors, including the family of Caryll and Dr. Norman F. Sprague Jr., who donated this one to the Autry. 

model of a western town

Tabletop Frontier Blog

In Tabletop Frontier, the blog post accompanying the above video, curator Josh Garrett-Davis writes that Imagined Wests will explore how the West has been imagined in many types of media—movies and television, sure, but also other forms of what anthropologists call expressive culture, including wood carvings.

Land Acknowledgment

The Autry Museum of the American West acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). We recognize that the Autry Museum and its campuses are located on the traditional lands of Gabrielino/Tongva peoples and we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.

The Autry Museum in Griffith Park

4700 Western Heritage Way

Los Angeles, CA 90027-1462
Located northeast of downtown, across from the Los Angeles Zoo.
Map and Directions

Free parking for Autry visitors.


MUSEUM AND STORE HOURS
Tuesday–Friday 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Saturday–Sunday 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

DINING
Food Trucks are available on select days, contact us for details at 323.495.4252.
The cafe is temporarily closed until further notice.