Skip to content

The Rockwell is your destination for all this and more. Give today to the 2024 Annual Appeal. Your contribution is essential to continue the journey. Donate today >>

Farewell (For Now) Jim Thorpe

Romero_NeverForgetJuly 22, 2015

One of our visitors’ favorite artworks will be packed up for shipping early next week. The vase, or urn, entitled Never Forget: Jim Thorpe All American by Diego Romero will be on loan to the Colorado State University Art Museum.

There, the piece will be part of a traveling exhibition entitled, Scrimmage: Football in American Art from the Civil War to Present. The exhibit is being curated by the University Art Museum and will be on view there beginning late August. In 2016, Jim Thorpe (and the rest of the exhibition) will be on view at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR. 

Romero’s work will be accompanied by many greats, including the works of Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, George Bellows, John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and a host of others.

Romero’s work explores gender politics, sexuality and multifaceted identities of Native people, and all the while, relates the contemporary to the ancient.  The Rockwell acquired the Never Forget Jim Thorpe All American polychrome vessel in 2000 and the piece has been on view in third floor permanent collection gallery ever since.

Here at The Rockwell, we’re so pleased to share our artwork with the world and be a part of the museum community at large. We’ll miss you, Jim Thorpe – best wishes for comfortable travel filled with bubble wrap. See you in 2017! 

Image Credit: Diego Romero, Never Forget: Jim Thorpe All American, 2000, polychrome and gilt lid, 17 1/4 x 9 1/2 in. Clara S. Peck Fund purchase.