Grizzly Riders International    

NEWS & MEDIA

"The Fra Dana Collection"                The State's HiddenTreasure

UM Seeks Home For Permanent Collection               The Montanan - Winter 2008                                      By Ginny Merriam

In a basement in the heart of The University of Montana campus, Montana artist Fra Dana glows across the decades.

Her auburn hair, drawn up on the back of her neck, reflects the leaves in the Montana landscape outside her window. Her blue cape flows around her as she absorbs the outside world from the newspaper in her hands.

Dana’s self-portrait oil painting On the Window Seat came to the University’s permanent art collection after she died in 1948. It’s one of the most famous works at UM, but few people see it because the collection has no home. Ten thousand works of art are spread among seven locations on and off campus, and some of them are on view on campus and around the state. But only one-half of 1 percent of them can be exhibited at any given time.

The story astounds nearly all who hear it. Visionary collectors, artists, faculty members, and administrators began the collection 114 years ago, just a year after the University itself was founded. Today’s 10,000 pieces are valued at more than $17 million. They include Dana’s work and the work of her teachers—major painters such as Alfred Maurer—and much more. A Rembrandt etching from 1632 is stored alongside the contemporary works of pop artist Andy Warhol, Montana artist Henry Meloy’s modern forms, a Japanese print circa 1796, Rudy Autio’s bold ceramics, and Edgar Paxson’s 1904 oil painting Sacajawea. British painter John Brown, called the “Boot Black Raphael,” speaks to viewers from 1900 with his painting of a pink-cheeked boy, and a Spanish altar panel survives the fifteenth century with its circa-1495 image of St. Gregory.

“These are treasures,” says Barbara Koostra, director of the Montana Museum of Art & Culture, which houses and manages the collection and looks toward its future. “When I show examples of pieces in this collection, people’s jaws drop.”

“People are stunned, universally stunned, when they see it,” says Jim Foley, University executive vice president.

Museum curator and art historian Manuela Well-Off-Man knows the collection intimately, curating exhibits from it that are shown in the campus galleries and on tour. She loves to tell the stories.

Take Dana’s self-portrait and her cascading blue cape. Then look at Alfred Maurer’s nearly life-size oil painting Gabrielle from 1900. Dana, though married to a Montana rancher, traveled and studied art in Europe and donated the works of her teachers along with her own paintings. The model Gabrielle, posing for Maurer around 1900, wears the same blue cape.

“So Fra Dana not only purchased Alfred Maurer’s painting, she must have also talked him out of the cape,” Well-Off-Man says.

Well-Off-Man can go to a basement shelf and carefully unroll white preservation foam to show a 1930s child’s doll. Its perfect pretty face with porcelain complexion and red bow of lips are framed by a green hood. In the collection is also a 1936 Fra Dana painting, Portrait of Sally Chambliss. The girl Sally wears a green hood.

Dana donated the painting. Years later, Sally Chambliss Turner, who grew up in Great Falls and now lives in Florida, came back to tell the story of visiting Dana in the Blackstone Apartments in Great Falls as a girl with her parents—and her doll—and having her portrait painted. She donated the doll.

“That’s what makes a collection valuable,” Well-Off-Man says. “It’s not just how famous the painter was. It’s also the stories you have. And the value of the collection is in the relationships among them, too.”

Well-Off-Man is one of hundreds of people in UM’s history who have nurtured the collection through its century.

“Ever since 1894, it’s been such a legacy of giving,” Koostra says. “There were some very caring professionals and volunteers.”

Today, under the umbrella of the UM President’s Office, the museum and the collection have stepped into a new phase. Koostra, the UM Foundation, and the museum’s board of advisors are raising $13.5 million for an endowment and a museum building, where the Permanent Collection will be the centerpiece.

“The Permanent Collection belongs to all Montanans, in perpetuity,” Koostra says. “It’s my dearest hope that it’s the enduring quality of the collection that propels people to help.”

Conceptual drawings and a program analysis developed by John Hilberry Museum Consulting of New York and A & E Architects of Missoula and Billings show a bright, state-of-the-art, 33,000-square-foot building set on the north edge of campus near the Van Buren Street footbridge and the Fitness and Recreation Center, where town meets gown. It will serve as a campus gateway and have space for exhibitions and educational programs and nearly 10,000 square feet of climate-controlled storage.

The building will glow with light from the inside, Koostra says.

“Anybody can move into a house,” she says. “This will be a home.”

Montana, for its third state museum, simply deserves the best, says Helen Ingersoll Cappadocia, a native of the state and an art donor who supports the museum and the idea of a building.

“I think the time has come for us to have one of the best museums in the country,” Cappadocia says. “Not because we have the population, not because we have the wealth, but because we have the vision.”

The Permanent Collection’s story has always been one of abundant vision and limited resources, Koostra says. It was founded and grown by alumni and business people who believed in the University as a center for art. Many graduated, traveled the world during their careers, collected art, and then donated it.

In 1912, the effort took shape as the Northwest History Museum. It had its first exhibit in Main Hall and then later displayed art in the Journalism Building and Turner Hall. Among the first donors were the Gibsons—A.J. Gibson being the architect of Main Hall, the Daly Mansion, and the Missoula County Courthouse.

In the 1930s, the first plan for a museum building showed a complex with a central gallery and four wings housing art, history, anthropology, and science. It went as far as architectural drawings, but funding never materialized.

In 1937, the Women’s Club Art Building (known in modern times as International Studies) was built with a donation from the Woman’s Club and the help of the Works Progress Administration. From 1937 to 1955, it was touted as “housing the first art museum in the Inland Northwest.” Why its purpose changed is unclear.

The collection went on, shepherded notably by faculty, especially of the Department of Art. Professor Jim Dew met Fra Dana and talked with her about her collection. Professors Rudy Autio and Don Bunse helped, along with Maxine Blackmer.

In 1977, the collection was the victim of a robbery. The robbers took small objects. When the police worked to put a report together, the guardians of the collection realized they had to work from mental lists because the art was not fully catalogued.

“In art as in life, sometimes something really bad has to happen before we realize a problem,” Koostra says. “It’s such a different place now. People on this campus really cared about this collection. But there just wasn’t the resource base.”

Under the direction of Dean Kathryn Martin beginning in the late 1970s, curator Dennis Kern began a rigorous cataloging and evaluation of the works that moved their care into the professional realm.

In 2001, the collection moved under the wing of the President’s Office. Under the direction of Maggie Mudd, the Montana Museum of Art & Culture was designated by the state of Montana as one of three state museums, joining the Montana Historical Society Museum in Helena and the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. President George Dennison, a collector who has donated art to the museum, moved it onto the priority list.

“I really think he believed in order to get it out of the basements, he had to talk about it more,” Foley says. “He saw it and recognized its importance.”

Koostra, a musician who grew up in Missoula, performed around the country, and earned her master’s degree in business administration at UM, became the museum’s director in January 2005. When she interviewed for the job, she knew it was the perfect fit. The museum was ready to leap into a long-range plan, a marketing plan, a revised collections management policy, a reconstituted advisory board, new partnerships, and national traveling exhibitions, along with plans for a building.

Today, the museum has eight changing exhibitions a year in its Paxson and Meloy galleries. Help from the Chutney Foundation and Grizzly Riders International has brought restoration funding. Four exhibitions are currently traveling, and Well-Off-Man is putting together a traveling show of Josephine Hale—a Montana painter who also was the first female Red Cross volunteer—set to tour in 2010. An exhibit of Rembrandt’s etchings, “Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings,” will be on view on campus in March and April 2008.

The goal for construction of the new museum building is a groundbreaking in 2010 or 2011 at the northeast corner of the campus.

“One of my favorite things about this job is building relationships,” Koostra says. “There are a lot of people who want to give back. They’re looking at art in a long-term way—a window into another time, a window into another culture, another experience in being alive, a window into the way an artist thinks. Because of how international our collection is, we have this to offer, in spades.”

Rembrandt Exhibition     

National Museum Tour of Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etchings 

Sponsored by the Grizzly Riders International 

A Private Reception For Grizzly Riders    And Their Guests

Sunday, March 9, 2008

The Grizzly Riders International is privileged to host a private reception to the opening of the National Museum Tour of Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etchings From the John Villarino Collection. 

This exhibit, at the Montana Museum of Art & Culture, offers a rare opportunity to see the works of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, recognized as the greatest practitioner of the etching technique of intaglio printmaking.The traveling exhibition displays 35 of these prints which focus with profound empathy on the poor and underprivileged of his time.

This Private Reception on March 9 is open exclusively to Grizzly Riders and their guests. Look for mailed invitations in January.

(The Rembrandt Exhibition will be open to the general public from March 11, 2008 - April 29, 2008.)

Click for additional information:

National Museum Tour - Facts, Images, List of Works, etc.

Montana Museum of Art & Culture

Grizzly Riders International Sponsorship

Rembrandt's etchings of outsiders span master's career

By JAMIE KELLY of the Missoulian                      March 11, 2008

They were the poor and disabled and mentally ill outcasts of Rembrandt's day, and he loved them.

From the Dutch master's earliest days as an artist, he granted the street people of theNetherlands a deep humanity and dignity that no other artist would touch.

And so Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn made them his own, even the ones who urinated in the streets or hobbled around town on wooden legs looking for a rat to eat.

“He had a feeling and an empathy for the impoverishment of these peoples, the ones who didn't play by the rules,” said Valerie Hedquist, an art historian at the University of Montana who specializes in 17th century Dutch art.

Hedquist's excitement these days was inspired by a new traveling exhibition at the Montana Museum of Art & Culture. “Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etching,” on view through April 29, is one of the most important art displays in the museum's history. It is on a major national tour through 2010.

Thirty-five original Rembrandt prints, taken directly from his drypoint etching nearly four centuries ago, are on the walls of the museum's Meloy Gallery for public perusal. From the John Villarino Collection, the extremely rare Rembrandts were brought to the University of Montana via the Landau Traveling Exhibitions of Los Angeles, and underwritten locally by Grizzly Riders International, which provides grants for educational, conservation and artistic endeavors at UM.

“In my opinion, this is something very stunning and amazing,” said MMAC curator Manuela Well-Off-Man. “It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance for people to see original Rembrandts.” (Read Entire Article)

Memorial Fund Continues Grizzly Riders’ Love of the West, Interest in The University of Montana

MONTANAN, Fall  2001 http://www.umt.edu/comm/f01/foundation.html

Since its founding in 1966 under the aegis of The University of Montana Foundation, the Grizzly Riders International has included hundreds of men and women on its annual outdoors expedition of horseback riding, fly fishing, hiking, relaxation and general enjoyment of spectacular surroundings.

During the annual excursion, forty to fifty men and women spend four days in a Montana wilderness location or at a dude ranch. In that setting, their affection for the University grows and so does their friendship for each other. As a fitting tribute to deceased Riders, members contribute generously to a memorial fund that has grown to more than $280,000. Interest earned on the endowed fund supports academic priorities at UM.

In keeping with the Grizzly Riders’ interest in the West, wilderness and wildlife, members twice designated their support to wildlife biology scholarships. Last year’s recipients were graduate students, Stephanie Gripne and Brendan Moynahan, who attended the Grizzly Riders annual meeting to thank their benefactors for financial assistance for their studies.

Gripne helped write a proposal for the Bitterroot Watershed Partnership, a community-based collaboration, for the Large-Scale Watershed Restoration Project, which she will use as a case study for her dissertation on community-based natural resource management efforts. Moynahan’s research deals with effects of habitat quality on the sage grouse population in eastern Montana. Both are students of Jack Ward Thomas, UM’s Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Biology and former chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

Progress 2004 - A special report on Montana's Economy and Business

Missoulian                                                                http://www.missoulian.com/specials/progress04/prog06.php                         A shine to jewelry

Custom-made, artistic creations are couple’s specialty

By COLIN McDONALD of the Missoulian

It was 1973, and Barney Jette was the standout student in the metalworking program at The University of Montana School of Art. During his senior year, Jette was asked to design a silver belt buckle for a new UM alumni association, the Grizzly Riders.

It was perfect match: With that commission, which became his senior project, Jette found his niche and his calling. Thirty years later he is still in Missoula designing jewelry for a Montana market that values practicality as much as beauty.

And the Grizzly Riders still wear his belt buckle.

TRIO Book Loan Program

Thanks to a generous donation from Grizzly Riders International, TRIO SSS was able to start a book loan program in 2007-08. At present the project has 60 books in its inventory, most of them books needed for typical freshmen/sophomore General Education and other high enrollment courses. We are able to assist 40 – 50 students per semester by allowing them to borrow one to three books for the semester, thus saving them the cost of purchasing them.

Learn more about the book loan program by clicking on these links:

• Summer session book loan guidelines
• Summer session book loan application
• Fall book loan guidelines
• Fall book loan application
• Book loan contract

Once all priority applicants have received books, the remaining inventory is available to all TRiO students. If you would like to borrow a book from our library, please check the list below to confirm the book's availability, and complete an application in the TRiO main office (Lommasson 180). An updated list of books is available on the TRiO blog: http://umtrio.wordpress.com/book-loan-program/books-available-for-check-out/

2009 Distinguished Alumni Awards

The Office Of Alumni Relations

Leon Billings, Bill Veazey, and Jim Wylder are the recipients of this year's Distinguished Alumni Awards. These men will be honored Friday evening, October 9, at 6:00 in the University Center Ballroom. Join us for this special awards ceremony and reception – a traditional Homecoming highlight. The event is open to the public.

Museum Receives Art Restoration Grants

UM News & Events                                                     Monday February 6, 2006                                          

The Montana Museum of Art and Culture at The            University of Montana has received two grants to preserve, to restore and repair many of the more than 9,000 works in its Permanent Collection.

A $200,000 award was granted through the Chutney       Foundation. The museum also received an additional      $20,000 from Grizzly Riders International, a philanthropic organization that uses national and international contacts to support UM.

The funds will be used to clean and restore more than    140 of the museum’s most important and highly valued   artworks and to preserve works in the Permanent           Collection such as a Spanish altar panel by the Master   of St. Gregory, circa 1490. The grants also will support   costs associated with archival materials, display systems and shipping, as well as ongoing efforts to fully catalogue the sizeable collection.

"We are thrilled at this highly significant support by the   Chutney Foundation and Grizzly Riders International,"      said Barbara Koostra, director of the museum. "Their      generous gifts enable us to reach a new level of           preserving historical and contemporary treasures within   the Permanent Collection, making available many works  never before seen by the public."

Grizzly Riders International was formed in 1966 as a       fellowship that benefits a variety of UM programs through  endowments, scholarships and a memorial fund for past  Riders.

The museum’s Permanent Collection, in existence since  1894 and located on the UM campus in Missoula, is one of the state’s oldest and most prominent cultural reserves.  The Permanent Collection denotes the commitment of important artists and benefactors who have entrusted their collections to the University.

Among the works in the Permanent Collection are such   treasures as the Edgar Paxson Collection of Paintings    and Memorabilia, the Fra Dana Collection of American    Impressionism, the Henry Meloy Collection and Archive,  and the Rudy Autio Ceramic Collection.

Additional museum holdings include historical works by  Frederick Remington, Ralph DeCamp, Julius Seyler, John Fery, William Merritt Chase, Joseph Henry Sharp, Alfred  Maurer and other notable artists. An emphasis on Montana art, including Native American work, as well as  a collection of Asian art and artifacts, rounds out the collection.

The Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s mission is to  actively engage the UM community and a diverse public in the appreciation of arts and culture through collections stewardship, exhibits and programs that educate and     enrich. The museum’s Paxson and Meloy galleries are    located in the Performing Arts and Radio/Television      Building at UM.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 4 to 8:30 p.m. There is no charge for admission, and free parking now is available near the northwest corner of the PAR/TV Building.

The traveling exhibition "Frances Senska: A Life in Art" is on view at the museum until Feb. 25.

For more information, call the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, (406) 243-2019, or go online to                   http://www.umt.edu/partv/famus.