For several years, the seventh floor of the Denver Art Museum's Gio Ponti building has been closed, recovering from being a launching pad for art destined for the Hamilton Building. Starting Saturday, the museum reclaims the space, putting art back on public view in nine galleries and a library.

In "Creating the West in Art," a mix of Western myth and Western reality, the DAM hopes to boost the profile of the institution's collection of the art of the American West while showcasing fine loans from other museums and private collectors. About one-third of the 130-plus works hail from the Harmsen Collection.

In the process, Peter Hassrick, outgoing director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art, has moved historic pieces - think George Catlin's stunning (and antimythic) 1832 painting The Cutting Scene O-kee-pa Ceremony - out of the Western galleries in the Hamilton Building and onto the seventh floor. The Hamilton space is now devoted to more contemporary scenes of and from the region.

"Creating the West in Art" was curated by Hassrick to make sort of a "skeleton" for future changeouts, said Thomas Smith, associate curator of the Petrie Institute.

"There are two different kinds of visitors: those from the West and those who don't have an idea of the West. People have stereotypes. But when they see the quality of the works and how the West played a pivotal part in American history, they can see beyond that."

The galleries are installed to place themes in a chronological approach:

* the movement to settle the West;

* the way in which art has defined cultures of the West;

* early Western scenes (back to circa 1823, with watercolors by Samuel Seymour);

* the trappers and mountain men;

* the Western landscape (both the realism of Thomas Worthington Whittredge and the spectacle of Albert Bierstadt);

* the legacy of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell (and artists such as Olaf Seltzer, with many broncos, bronchos and broncs);

* noted illustrators and sculptors;

* a small hallway gallery devoted to watercolors and small sculpture. It ends in a space that moves up to 1950 to consider the masterful painters of New Mexico.

At the center of this ring of galleries is space waiting for photography curator Eric Paddock to install work from that collection.

Though each gallery has a certain power - including the entry, where depictions of people streaming west are an immediate grab - perhaps the most memorable is the space devoted to trappers and mountain men. From Charles Deas' 1844 Long Jakes to William Ranney's 1852 The Fallen Trapper to the vaqueros of James Walker's 1877 Cowboys Roping a Bear, the work is vital and telling. In here, history moves.

The seventh floor, meanwhile, also has undergone a face-lift - and not just a new soothing coat of paint. While paying homage to historical Western art, the museum decided to show respect to the original Gio Ponti and James Sudler design: Numerous windows have been uncovered; though some are fitted with scrims to control the light, others reveal clear views of mountains and Civic Center.

In one key instance, this allows a viewer not only to inspect Alexander Phimister Proctor's small 1920 bronze On the War Trail but also to relate it (from afar) to Proctor's monumental casting of that work installed in the park below. It is a link between yesterday and today, and a reminder that the Beaux Arts architectural and landscape elements of Civic Center shelter art firmly grounded here.

The DAM has been collecting what is typically called Western art for a long time, but for a period little was on view. Anyone hankering to get close to a cowboy or a mountain scene had to go to William Foxley's once-princely, now-long-defunct Museum of Western Art. In the late 1980s, DAM trustee Bob Magness changed that with a gift that created the Betsy Magness galleries of Western art on the sixth floor. At some point, these moved upstairs.

Since then, the museum has continued collecting, getting a big boost from the sweeping 2000 show of work from the Anschutz Collection. Later support came from donor Thomas Petrie for the institute, which can initiate shows such as the recent "In Contemporary Rhythm: The Art of Ernest L. Blumenschein" and fund annual publications.

A spokeswoman said the museum paid for this installation; the Betsy Magness name remains. But it shows that having an endowment and collector support can move mountains - and not just on canvas.

After all, according to a story I wrote in 2001, Western art was to stay in the Hamilton, with textiles to head to the seventh floor of the Ponti, Native American to move to one and two, and architecture, design and graphics to sprawl over floors two and three. Um, not yet.

Money talks, and though the economy is hard to even address, those other departments need attention, too. Sure, it won't happen this minute. But, taking a cue from "Creating the West in Art," it should not be forgotten.

Mary Chandler is the art and architecture critic. chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677

Creating the West in Art

* What: Reopening of seventh-floor galleries as a home for historic art of the American West

* When and where: Permanent installation opens to the public Saturday; Denver Art Museum, 100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway

* Information: 720-865-5000;

denverartmuseum.org

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