Autry Showcases the Best of the West : The museum pays homage to a pioneering past while highlighting current cultural trends

Since it opened in 1988, the Autry Museum of Western Heritage has been a sort of secret find among astute observers of the local cultural scene. The secret is that it’s a real museum for grown-ups, not just a kids’ collection of glittery duds.

Its image was skewed by Gene Autry’s film-cowboy career. (The Getty, Huntington and Norton Simon museums might have had the same problem if, instead of oil, railroads and corporations, their founders had all been in Westerns.) The Autry, to dispel the idea that it contains mostly Gene Autry memorabilia, has renamed itself using only his surname.

The fact that it often explores the West of movies and TV has not kept the Autry from getting national recognition for its serious side.

Its professionalism has been rewarded with accreditation by the American Assn. of Museums, and it was recently among 15 recipients of 1995 federal education grants sought by 300 museums.

Heavy on popular culture, the Autry’s exhibits illuminate two aspects of the West--the familiar, largely fictional one and the elusive real one.

A current show called “Imaging the West� examines the interplay between the real and quasi-mythical West using photos, books, documents and other material from the museum’s collection. It opened in May along with the Autry’s research center and included a three-day presentation of scholarly papers.

“Walt Disney’s Wild West� is about how Disney has shaped perceptions. Some recent exhibits have been on holidays in the West, Japanese American women and popular portrayals of Mexican Americans. Shows are coming on women painters and the Pacific Coast League.

With 10 galleries and dotted with small film theaters, the brightly inviting museum in Griffith Park is well worth a visit, even if Westerns aren’t your cup of cowboy coffee. If they are--well, it has Gene’s boots too.