The Westmoreland Museum of American Art has a big year coming up in 2009 but it's not waiting that long to begin celebrating its golden anniversary.

The official kickoff will coincide with the November opening of "Scalp Level Revisited," which will be dedicated to the memory of Paul A. Chew, the museum's founding director. Fireworks on New Year's Eve will usher in the 50th calendar year. But the current exhibition, "Painting in the United States," arguably makes a sterling preamble to, if not component of, the festive programming because it so exemplifies what the museum represents.

The Westmoreland added the word "American" to its title in 1996, to clarify its mission to exhibit, collect and conduct research on American art. Located in Greensburg, it maintains a hearty relationship with Pittsburgh institutions and artists.

The idea for "Painting" came to Westmoreland curator Barbara Jones while she was researching a retrospective exhibition on Pittsburgh artist and educator Samuel Rosenberg, shown at the museum in 2003. She learned that during World War II, the Carnegie International was suspended and the museum organized exhibitions of American art in its place. Rosenberg was included in each of the seven shows.

For "Painting," Jones assembled works by 48 artists represented in those exhibitions -- 42 of them the actual artworks exhibited in Pittsburgh -- bringing a historic complement to the 55th Carnegie International now at Carnegie Museum of Art. The paintings vary formally from academic realism to abstraction and artists range from Grandma Moses to Philip Guston. (Visit before Monday to see George Tooker's unsettling tempera "Children and Spastics" before it's whisked away to the retrospective of his work opening next month at the National Academy Museum, New York.)

The accompanying, fully illustrated catalog -- with a compilation of the more than 600 artists and artworks included overall in the exhibitions -- is a commendable contribution to the body of scholarship on American art.

Saturday the Westmoreland marks another milestone with an "Oktoberfest"-style opening reception for "From the Ruhr Valley to the Steel City: Industrial Scenes From the Rhineland Industrial Museum" of Oberhausen, Germany.

Last year, the museum's exhibition of 60 paintings of industrial scenes from its collection, "Born of Fire: The Valley of Work," traveled to the Rhineland Industrial Museum where it garnered rave response.

In return, the Rhineland museum has sent to Greensburg the approximately 30 paintings, works on paper, sculpture and photographs they had exhibited with the Westmoreland show.

Attending Saturday's event will be Jurgen Wilhelm, president of the Rhineland Regional Assembly and director general of the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst; Milena Karabaic, administrator for Culture and the Environment for the Rhine region; and Rhineland Industrial Museum director Thomas Schleper.

German food will be served at the reception, along with a beer created for the occasion by Greensburg's Red Star Brewery and Grille and named Born of Fire Oktoberfest Lagerbier. Music will be provided by the NewLanders, a group of Pittsburgh area musicians and songwriters who research songs written by and about southwestern Pennsylvania, and who recorded the CD "Born of Fire -- Songs of Steel and Industry."

Exhibition "Born of Fire" is at the Saxon Museum of Industry in Chemnitz, Germany. It goes next to The Coal Mining Museum in Zabrze, Poland, and then the Centre Cultural Caixa Terrassa, Terrassa, Spain.

The Westmoreland has gained a national reputation for its advocacy for American art, but especially for its interest in the artists of southwestern Pennsylvania. Prominent among the latter are the 19th-century painters of the Scalp Level School, named for a rural area near Johnstown.

The forthcoming exhibition underscores the museum's continuing participatory relevance, as opposed to simply being a repository of objects. But also important is the role it plays in bringing historic artworks to public attention by continuing to embellish the collection. A recent example is the 1874 painting "Silver Thread Falls, Pennsylvania" by James Brade Sword. Sword was considered a Hudson River School painter, but he did travel once to Scalp Level to paint according to Judith O'Toole, Westmoreland director/CEO.

The museum also provides recognition to contemporary Pennsylvania artists, through solo and group exhibitions. It has presented an Exhibition Award to an exhibiting artist in the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh annuals since 1996.

In the "Painting in the United States" catalog, O'Toole writes that the Westmoreland didn't exist when the Carnegie began its wartime exhibitions. But in 1949, the last year of the war series, Greensburg widow Mary Marchand Woods formed a foundation with the intention of building a museum in her community.

As we look at the achievements of this small but accomplished organization, and look forward to upcoming celebrations, we can be grateful she had that foresight.

Admission to the Oktoberfest, from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, is free; $5 will buy a specialty glass and unlimited beer refills. Reservations are appreciated. "Painting" continues through Oct. 19; "Ruhr Valley" through Dec. 28, at 221 N. Main St., Greensburg. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays and until 9 p.m. Thursdays. Admission is $5 suggested donation; students and children under 12 free. For information, call 724-837-1500 or visit www.wmuseumaa.org.