OGDENSBURG -- Art Historian Kathleen Stein will present a talk called “Wilderness Tamed, but Paradise Lost: the Nostalgia of the West” on Wednesday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Frederic Remington Art Museum, 303 Washington St.

Stein, art history and film and representation studies instructor at St. Lawrence University, will consider 19th century artistic representations of the West in painting and photography and the range of views and sentiments they express about westward expansion.

The presentation is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.

“Even before revisionist historians questioned the heroic narrative of the ‘winning’ of the West, the best novels and films in the Western genre often expressed ambivalence towards the march of civilization they supposedly celebrated,” said Stein.

In her presentation, Stein will explore how the first visual expressions of this ambivalence can be found in the works of some early 19th century American landscape painters, and then in the works of the photographers of the western landscape influenced by them.

“I anticipate that Stein’s presentation will provide valuable insight into the art historical and cultural context for Frederic Remington’s representations of the West,” said Remington Museum education specialist Laura Desmond.

The presentation is part of a package of educational programs presented by the Remington Museum in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts entitled, “Once Upon a Time...The Western: A New Frontier in Art in Film.”

The exhibition examines the evolution of the Western genre from the mid-1800s to the present in painting, photography, film, and popular culture, and includes an impressive array of original artworks, including 15 by Frederic Remington.

The Remington Museum is offering a bus trip to the exhibition on Saturday, December 2, which also includes an en route presentation on Western film, a guided tour of the exhibition, and a film screening; for ticket information, visit fredericremington.org or call 315-393-2425.

And in January, Thomas Brent Smith, Curator of Western American Art and Director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art at the Denver Art Museum, who is the co-curator of the exhibition in Montreal, will give a gallery talk at the Remington Museum.