National Willa Cather Center News

A new exhibition on display through May 3, 2015 in the Art Gallery of the Red Cloud Opera House features stunning photographs of the Nebraska plains by Jorn Olsen. Images include vibrant prints of the Sandhill Cranes, gorgeous sunsets and sunrises over rolling green pastures and rivers, cowboys moving cattle, and tourist destinations such as the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie and the Starke Round Barn.

15th International Cather Seminar to be held in Nebraska

Willa Cather is one of the most important American novelists of the first half of the 20th century. In the centenary year of Cather’s third novel, The Song of the Lark, more than seventy scholars and students from over twenty-one states and five countries will participate in the 15th International Cather Seminar on “Cather and the Arts” being held June 5–12, 2015.

The Willa Cather Foundation Launches New Website

In celebration of its 60th year, the Willa Cather Foundation is pleased to announce the next chapter of its website, located at www.WillaCather.org. Founded in 1955 and headquartered in Red Cloud, the Willa Cather Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather through education, historic preservation, and the arts.

The sophisticated new website provides many rich features for visitors.

As plans progress for the National Willa Cather Center and the new archival facility to be housed within it, additions to our archival collection continue to arrive through the generosity of both new and old friends of the Foundation. Inscribed Cather photos, historic family photos, vintage literary advertising, Cather letters, and wonderful pieces of Willa Cather Foundation history have been added recently—all as we continue the work to make our collection ever more accessible to scholars and readers.

Currently on display in the Red Cloud Opera House Gallery is an original painting by Todd Williams, entitled "Red Cloud circa 1900." The piece is a part of a project called “Painting the Legacy of Nebraska: Celebrating 150 Years” in which Williams will paint a scene from each of Nebraska’s ninety-three counties. This project is taking place in conjunction with The Nebraska Sesquicentennial in 2017. The stunning painting was unveilied to the public at a reception on Tuesday, November 25, 2014. 

Our growing collection of Cather papers and objects was enhanced recently with the addition of The Beatrix "Trix" Mizer Florance and Sidney R. Florance Collection, a group of letters written to Sidney and Beatrix Mizer Florance. A childhood friend of Cather who later studied music in Chicago, "Trix" Mizer Florance is one of several possible prototypes for Cather's Lucy Gayheart, making the addition of these letters especially important for scholars and enthusiasts. More than twenty-five letters, cards, and notes reveal their long friendship and their shared interest in music.