Two Saturdays carry most of the Cultural District's new openings this month. On November 7, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame opens its expansion, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art opens a new installation by Lava Thomas. On November 21, the Carter opens a small show on its mezzanine about the friendship that led to the museum. Taken together, the new work this season looks inward. It draws on Fort Worth's own collections, its own institutions and its own founding families. For anyone in Westover Hills, the family in that last category is a familiar one.
The land first, then the museum
The Town of Westover Hills' official history says most of the town's land was originally owned by Amon G. Carter. The first plats were drawn in 1929. John E. Farrell, the first mayor, was one of the first to build a home there, in 1931, and the town was incorporated as a Class A city in 1939.
The Carter Museum identifies Ruth Carter Stevenson as Amon G. Carter Sr.'s daughter and as the museum's founder, as noted in its centennial release on her birth. Her father's collection was Western art. The new exhibition explains how her own taste moved somewhere else.
Creative Visions: Cynthia Brants and Ruth Carter Stevenson runs November 21, 2026, through April 4, 2027, on the Carter's mezzanine. Brants and Stevenson met as children and stayed close throughout their lives. At Sarah Lawrence College, Brants introduced Stevenson to European modernism, which helped her develop an artistic vision of her own, apart from her father's collection. Through Brants, Stevenson met new artists and ideas and became more involved in Fort Worth's emerging modernist art community.
The show is 22 works on paper, including pieces by Brants and by artists connected to the Fort Worth Circle. The museum frames it as the story of how friendship and collaboration shaped the city's modernist scene and, in the end, led to the creation of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. One of the highlighted works is Brants' color etching Tattered Petals, from 1993.
Put the two histories side by side and you get a direct line. One generation of the Carter family held the ground that became Westover Hills. The next generation founded a museum on a different idea of what American art could be. At that museum, admission is free.
November 7 opens two more local histories
The Carter's own building has another opening two weeks before Creative Visions. Lava Thomas: In Our Own Regard opens November 7 and runs through November 2027. It is a site-specific installation in the Sloping Gallery that sets the artist's family-photo archive in conversation with the museum's Mary Everhard Collection. Through portraits and wallpaper Thomas designed, it puts forward people who are often left out of American history. So this installation also works from material already in Fort Worth, a collection held by the Carter itself.
A few blocks away on the same morning, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame at 1720 Gendy Street opens its expansion. The museum describes a 16,000-square-foot addition to the west with a new entrance, four gallery spaces, an 18-horse carousel, event space and room for K–12 programming. It has been closed to the public since October 19 to get ready.
The day's schedule, from the museum's event page:
- 10 a.m. Members-only preview
- 10:30 a.m. Streets close for the parade
- 11 a.m. Grand Cowgirl Parade through the Cultural District, with horses, Western groups and floats; free to watch anywhere along the route, with reserved seats also offered
- Noon Public opening of the new galleries, exhibitions and the Cowgirl Carousel
Public parking will be in the Western Heritage Garage and the Yellow Lot, with a fee collected by the City of Fort Worth and Trail Drive Management. Members get discounted parking at the concierge desk inside. The museum calls the day the start of its next 50 years.
For anyone driving in that Saturday, the 10:30 street closures matter more than the parade time. Seeing both openings in one outing is easy because the Carter's new installation has no admission fee.
The imported show leaves first
Not everything on view this season comes from Fort Worth. The Kimbell Art Museum's Photography's First Century: Masterworks from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is a loan from Paris, and it closes January 17, 2027. Of all the major shows here, it has the shortest time left. It is ticketed: $18 for adults, $16 for seniors and students, $14 for children ages 6 to 11, and free for children under 6 and for members. The Kimbell's collection stays free.
The Kimbell's next big loan has already been announced. Treasures of the Pharaohs is scheduled for March 14 through September 19, 2027, in the Renzo Piano Pavilion, according to the museum's 2027 exhibition announcement from September 28, 2026. That leaves late January to mid-March as a gap between blockbusters.
Across the street, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is also looking to its own holdings. In the Making: Stories from the Collection opened October 31 and runs through August 15, 2027. The museum describes it as a changing presentation of works from its collection, so a visit in spring may not look like one in November.
At the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, Forces at Play is on view through February 28, 2027.
The season, in date order
- Now through January 17: Photography's First Century at the Kimbell, ticketed
- Now through February 28: Forces at Play at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History
- Now through August 15, 2027: In the Making at the Modern
- November 7: Cowgirl expansion opens to the public at noon; parade at 11 a.m.
- November 7 through November 2027: Lava Thomas: In Our Own Regard at the Carter, free
- November 21 through April 4: Creative Visions at the Carter, free
- November 22, 6 p.m.: the GM Financial Parade of Lights downtown, per its official site
- March 2027: public opening of the Baker Martin Family Garden at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden
- March 14 through September 19, 2027: Treasures of the Pharaohs at the Kimbell
What a visit costs
| Venue | What's on | Admission as posted |
|---|---|---|
| Amon Carter Museum of American Art | Lava Thomas, Creative Visions | Free |
| Kimbell Art Museum, collection | Permanent collection | Free |
| Kimbell Art Museum, special exhibition | Photography's First Century | $18 adults, $16 seniors and students, $14 ages 6–11, free under 6 and members |
| National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame | Expanded galleries and carousel | $18 adults, $15 seniors and military/first responders, $12 ages 4–12, free 3 and under |
| Fort Worth Botanic Garden | Baker Martin Family Garden, from March 2027 | No extra fee beyond garden admission |
The Cowgirl prices are the ones on the museum's admission page leading up to the reopening. The Botanic Garden says member early access to the Baker Martin Family Garden begins this fall, with the public opening in March 2027.
Two of the season's free openings are at the Carter, the museum Ruth Carter Stevenson founded. One of them traces how she came to found it. Creative Visions opens November 21 on the mezzanine, and it closes April 4.
If the Carter family's part in shaping west Fort Worth is a story you live alongside, Raleigh Green would be glad to share more of what we know about Westover Hills, from its 1929 plats to the streets that grew from them. Request a private consultation whenever it suits you.
