Andy Farkas, North Carolina, Their Boat,
2011, Wood engraving and handset type,
Courtesy of the artist

Wood Engravers Network Triennial Exhibition
June 9 – September 17, 2016 | Paxson Gallery

The Wood Engravers Network Triennial Exhibition is the second juried exhibition sponsored by the Wood Engravers Network. This traveling exhibition presents 60 prints by 51 artists from Belgium, Canada, Finland, Ireland, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Works by both members and non-members of WEN are surprisingly bold for their modest size, revealing a rich diversity of styles and subjects that prove this historic medium is robust and thriving. Joan Boudreau, Curator of the Graphic Arts Collection at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History juried the show.

Frederic Remington, Toro, Toro! 
Harper’s Weekly, December 9, 1893
Engraving
Collection of Lee Silliman

Dramatic Moments: Frederic Remington’s Early Engravings, 1882-1893 
June 9 – September 17, 2016 | Meloy Gallery

This exhibition presents an outstanding collection of large-size vintage Harper’s Weekly engravings by Frederic Remington. These images launched Remington’s illustration career, providing the platform from which he evolved into one of the West’s most famous fine art painters. The engravings not only document Remington’s rise to prominence and wealth, but also chronicle the convulsive events in the closing decades of the Western frontier era. Remington strove to portray people and their role in the pageant of history, and his graphics reveal his emergence as an expert narrative artist.   

The engravings in this exhibition – especially the double-page images, with their dramatic contrast and subtle exercise of mid-tones – are exemplars of the wood engraver’s art of the late nineteenth century.  Prominently displayed, for example, is Remington’s consummate skill in rendering the horse in motion, although subsequent technological evolution into half-tone reproduction of paintings soon rendered the wood engraving technique obsolete.

The engravings exhibited in this exhibition are courtsey of Lee Silliman, and sponsorsed with generous support from Stockman Bank.

MMAC Publication

First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare
May 9 - May 31, 2016 | Meloy Gallery

The University of Montana is pleased to be named Montana’s host for the First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on national tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, sponsored by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library and the Montana Museum of Art & Culture (MMAC). The Folger Shakespeare Library, in association with the Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, is touring the exhibition to all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in 2016. The MMAC will be the only location in Montana to display the Folio during its tour around the country.The First Folio exhibition will be on display in MMAC and open to the public during special hours. Thank you to the Folger Shakespeare Library. The tour is made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and by the support of Google.org, Vinton and Sigrid Cerf, the British Council, and other generous donors.

Carolyn Montgomery and Hadley Ferguson

Capturing Moments: Living Life with Parkinson's
May 9 - May 31, 2016 | Paxson Gallery

The Capturing Moments art installation brings together thousands of journeys of resilience from the global Parkinson's community. The installation features a 9-foot metal tree, which is lit from within and holds thousands of copper and paper leaves. Each leaf shares a quote or message from someone in our world living with or impacted by Parkinson’s. By sharing their stories and quotes, contributors to the project inspire, connect, and help to build the tree of resilience. In combination with the tree sculpture, the exhibition also includes environmental portraits with personal stories of resilience. This is the premiere installation of the national tour for Capturing Moments, and features the work of Montana artists Carolyn Montgomery and Hadley Ferguson.

 
George Gogas, Too Lazy to Work #25
1997, Acrylic on canvas
Collection of Dr. Robert and Millicent Hawkins

George Gogas: Odyssey
March 3 - April 23, 2016 | Meloy Gallery

This exhibition celebrates Missoula artist and teacher George Gogas, honoree of this year’s Odyssey of the Stars, the College of Visual and Performing Arts fundraiser to support scholarships for UM students from the Schools of Art, Media Arts, Music, and Theatre & Dance. Odyssey of the Stars event: March 5, 2016.

From small prints and studies to large canvases, the exhibition surveys over 40 years of creative work, charting the artist’s development of a unique language of formal adaptation. In Judith Basin Encounter, a series at the show’s center, Gogas imagines an exciting friendship between two men who never actually met: C.M. Russell and Pablo Picasso. Canvases by Charlie Russell are translated into cubist compositions with specific quotations of Picasso’s art. These works transcend normal limitations of time and historical memory, not least in titles referencing current issues, such asWhen Charlie and Pablo Overdrew at the ATM. Generous loans from private collections, including that of the artist, complement the MMAC Permanent Collection, tracing the artist’s ahistorical style.

Presence: Rudy Autio and Henry Meloy
March 3 - April 23, 2016 | Paxson Gallery

Presence considers distinct chapters in the careers of two major Montana artists whose explorations of form and material delved into the nature of presence and absence in art.     

Glorious Vista: Art of the American West from the MMAC Permanent Collection
January 7 - February 20, 2016 | Paxson and Meloy Galleries

From the Pueblos of New Mexico to Glacier National Park, this exhibition explores the landscapes and people of the Rocky Mountain West during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Landscape paintings by Edgar Paxson, Joseph Henry Sharp and others in the Meloy Gallery combine to show the backdrop that enticed many west. Paintings and sculptures of cowboys and Native Americans by Charles M. Russell, Ace Powell, Nancy McLaughlin, and George Catlin round out this show in the Paxson Gallery to give a face to individuals who made history in the broader American West. From documenting Native American tribal identities to rallying support behind conservation and the National Parks movement, see how art in the West evolved to create a regional aesthetic that remains influential today.