Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2020, the Montana Museum of Art and Culture is home to one of the oldest, largest, and deepest art collections in the Rocky Mountain Northwest.

The MMAC is a free public museum that came into existence in 1894, a year after the founding of the University of Montana, the state’s flagship higher academic institution.

Today, the MMAC is a teaching museum with a world-class Permanent Collection of close to 12,000 objects, including significant historic and contemporary works of art. It is one of three state museums in Montana alongside the Montana Historical Society in Helena and the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. In September 2023, the MMAC opened the doors of its first permanent home, a museum building dedicated to the education, exhibition, and preservation of our extensive collection. 

A History of the Montana Museum of Art & Culture

The Montana Museum of Art and Culture came into existence shortly after the founding of the University of Montana in Missoula. The state’s flagship university, established in 1893 under the leadership of President Oscar J. Craig, began with fifty enrolled students. In 1895, a request to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. for some specimens to support academic disciplines at the new university resulted in the first recorded donation, consisting of minerals, sea invertebrates, fish, and plants. While objects of a scientific nature are no longer a part of the museum, the MMAC’s Permanent Collection has grown to include close to 12,000 works of art and cultural artifacts.

At the turn of the last century, the museum was actively acquiring collections and housing them on the first floor of the new University Hall, designed by architect A.J. Gibson. Locations within the “Main Hall,” as it has come to be known, changed several times due to growth of the university. In 1912, the museum space was abandoned altogether to make way for a Law Library and the collections remained dormant until the conclusion of World War I.

In the early 1920s, the museum experienced another period of intense growth under the leadership of co-directors Dr. Paul C. Phillips of the History Department and Dr. Harry Turney-High of the Anthropology Department. The original donation of several hundred minerals and marine objects became a teaching collection for the sciences. Major donations from the estates of A.J. and Maud Gibson, John Ellsworth Lewis, and famous western artist E.S. Paxson became the foundations of the Permanent Collection of art. Collections of historic artifacts related to Montana and Western history followed. The museum’s holdings expanded to include a vast treasury of fine art, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, furniture, and other important works from various cultures, countries, and periods.

In 1937, Art Digest and Newsweek magazines praised the museum, the latter calling it, “the first art museum in the Inland Northwest.” A pivotal moment came in 1948 with the receipt of two significant donations of fine art by collector Stella Louise Duncan and Montana artist Fra Dana. Other notable donations included: Robert Lehman’s gift of 16th century Italian majolica; a loan of New Deal-era prints from the General Services Administration in Washington, D.C.; Dr. Carolyn McGill’s donation of 1,200 objects; Helen Cappadocia’s textile and book collection and the Ben and Shirley Steele Collection of P.O.W. drawings and paintings in the early 2000s; and a suite of European paintings and sculptures belonging to Montana Senator and “Copper King” William A. Clark in 2018.

The collection of historic and modern European works of art ranges from a Greek ceramic vase from around the 3rd century BCE to works by contemporary artists. Of particular note are works of art from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, including paintings by masters such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Honoré Daumier, Eugene Delacroix, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-François Millet, and prints by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Rembrandt Van Rijn. Among significant European artists from the 20th century are: Peter Blake, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Käthe Kollwitz, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso.

The strength of the Permanent Collection lies in works by celebrated artists from the Rocky Mountain West, including Rudy Autio, Fra Dana, Edgar Paxson, Frederick Remington, and Joseph Henry Sharp. The American holdings also include artists William Merritt Chase, Fra Dana, Rockwell Kent, Robert Motherwell, and Andy Warhol, among others. The collection also features Contemporary Native American art including works by Percy Bull Child, Jim Denomie, Gloria Emerson, Jay Laber, Erica Lord, Neil Parsons, and many others.

Asian art, including Southeast Asian textiles, vintage clothing and theatrical costumes, historic furnishings, and public art sited across the University of Montana campus round out the MMAC’s Permanent Collection. Long-term loans to the museum include a collection of New Deal era prints Courtesy of the U.S. General Services Administration in Washington D.C. and modernists paintings and drawings from the Henry Meloy Collection.

In 1982, Dean Kathryn Martin of the School of Fine Arts (now the School of Visual and Media Arts) hired the first curator, Dennis Kern. Kern implemented the first collections database, wrote grant proposals for conservation and collection furniture, and adopted formal policies to guide collections management.

Construction of the Performing Arts, Radio and Television (PARTV) Center was completed in 1984 and the museum opened the Henry Meloy Gallery the following year.  Under the aegis of the College of Fine Arts, the museum was renamed the “Museum of Fine Arts.” In 1986, a large tapestry or rya, designed by professor emeritus Rudy Autio and woven in Helsinki, Finland, was installed in the PARTV Center lobby as one of the museum’s most notable acquisitions.

Director and Curator Maggie Mudd had the galleries and storage spaces in PARTV retrofitted with security and climate control in 1995. Mudd also spearheaded moving the museum’s main storage to the basement of the Social Science Building, allowing for the creation of the Edgar Paxson Gallery in PARTV. Under Mudd, the name of the museum was changed from “Museum of Fine Arts” to the “Montana Museum of Art and Culture” in 2001 and it was designated one of three state museums, along with the Montana Historical Society in Helena and the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. The museum subsequently came under direct administration of the President’s Office. Mudd also secured the long-term loan of the Henry Meloy collection, the works of Montana’s best-known modernist living and working in New York City in the 20^th century.

In 2002, Manuela Well-Off-Man, a German-born scholar with a focus on Native American art, started as curator and served as interim director until Nelson Britt was hired in 2003 with the express purpose of pursuing the construction of a new museum building. Britt died after eight months in the position and Barbara Koostra was named director in 2005.

The collection grew steadily under Koostra who developed an expansion plan with the construction of a new building at its core. Koostra made numerous attempts to build a new facility and also worked to increase professional practices at the museum, pursuing long range planning, revising collections management policies, and creating a Docent program. She hired Brandon Reintjes as curator in 2008 followed by Jeremy Canwell in 2015.

Under Koostra and Canwell, the museum secured the gift of nine paintings from the collection of Senator William A. Clark. This impressive grouping includes a relief sculpture of the Madonna and Child attributed to Italian renaissance sculptor Donatello, a landscape by English artist Thomas Gainsborough, and paintings by baroque artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard and French 19th century artists Jean-Charles Cazin, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Jules Dupré.

In 2018, the MMAC returned to the School of Visual and Media Arts. President Seth Bodnar’s administration prioritized the construction of a new building on the university campus and determined that it would be 100% privately funded. UM Art History and Criticism Professor Dr. H. Rafael Chacón was named Bruce and Suzanne Crocker Director of the MMAC the following year. Having taught art history and criticism in the School of Visual and Media Arts for 25 years, Chacón furthered the museum’s priorities and realigned others by prioritizing students as the museum’s primary constituents, seeking better integration with the university’s academic programs, diversifying the museum staff, globalizing its collections, forging new links across the community and state, and continued prioritizing of fundraising for a new building.

In 2019, a lead gift of $5 million dollars from Terry and Pat Payne catalyzed the construction of the first permanent home for the largest and deepest collection of art in the state. This foundational gift was only the start and inspired the generosity of many other donors, resulting in a $15 million dollar, state-of-the-art facility that opened its doors on the University of Montana campus in September 2023.

With the recognition that its priceless collections belong to all Montanans, the MMAC continues to serve as an educational resource and a place for inspiration and enjoyment for generations to come.