In her new award-winning book 'Montana Modernists,' Michele Corriel declares that artists from the West are so much more than frontier portrayals of cowboys and Indians
Not your normal purty sunset: Bill Stockton's 1984 piece, "Dusk," created with livestock marker and graphite and paper. This piece is among those featured in Corriel's new book. Image courtesy of the Stockton Family
by Todd Wilkinson
Cowboys and Indians. If there are clichés embedded in what some call “Western Art,” there are subjects such as these—also throw in explorers, trappers and settlers—that have, for generations, dominated public perception of imagery in our region. They factor prominently into provincial mythology which also shapes cultural identity.
When you really think about how the above are presented in two and three dimensions, so many depictions of the 19th century West involve hardship, conflict between new and old, turf battles, nature being venerated and simultaneously tamed, and ancient people who were already here vs. continuous waves of newcomers seeking to claim it as their own.
Much, of course, was left out. Art historians say that prevailing artistic portrayals often offer an impression of a West only existing in the past tense, populated by white males, stuck in a way of thinking about a time and place that once was—or may never have really existed except in Hollywood—and certainly will never be known the same way again.
Thomas Moran’s embellished, romantic depictions of Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon and geothermal areas helped convince Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant to create the world’s first national park. Masterworks by Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell and others are found many of the most prominent fine art museums in the land.
What writer and historian Michele Corriel struggles with is this: the West often is visually treated as if it was frozen in time.
So many artists have dwelled in the shadows of their predecessors, especially women and non-white artisans. Corriel’s new book, Montana Modernists: Shifting Perspectives on Western Art, was years in the making and it serves as a declarative reminder that art produced in “the West” goes far beyond “Western art.”
Focusing on six Treasure State artists who rose in the decades following World War II, Montana Modernists champions the shift toward interpreting the West in more daring, contemporary light. Ever-present are influences, be it themes or use of materials that bolster a sense of tactile connection to nature for the viewer. Even for the book’s author, the trove of contemporary art she celebrates was a discovery.
Corriel grew up in New York City and moved to Montana three decades ago. During her childhood, she haunted the city’s museums and first found her voice as a poet. In high school, she prodigiously was a awarded a Young Pen Women of America award.
“While managing a rock club in the East Village, I founded my own poetry performance band [its name was Escape from Birdland] and played at the underground clubs. Around the same time I founded an arts magazine, Cover Arts New York, where I came upon the notion that poets make the best art writers,” she says. “I believe that poets have the ability to understand and translate the creative process in a way that unites the reader with the art.”
“The simple frontier nostalgia of previous generations has given way to a subtle reflection on the land and its people and their doubtful future in a society dominated by consumer individualism." —the late Montana historian Mike Malone who served as a president of Montana State University in Bozeman and is quoted in Corriel's book.
After relocating to Montana, Corriel started writing for several art magazines. “Over the course of my freelancing I would constantly hear from artists about the DeWeeses, Frances Senska, Jessie Wilber, and Bill Stockton as artists who influenced their own work,” she says. “ This idea stayed with me for a long time. I finally met with Harvey Hamberg, who was the art history professor at Montana State University at the time, and asked what he thought about that as a subject for a book. He said, “That’s a dissertation.”
Corriel took Hamberg’s advisement seriously and used the pursuit of a PhD as a motivation for writing her book. Published in November 2022, Montana Modernists won a Montana Book Award earlier this year and is now a finalist for a High Plains Book Award.
Far from being a creative backwater, Corriel notes, Montana and the surrounding states attracted people who possessed the courage to push boundaries while at the same time establishing conduits into barrier-smashing movements taking hold in Europe and large American cities. Corriel quotes the late Mike Malone, Western historian and president of Montana State University, “The simple frontier nostalgia of previous generations has given way to a subtle reflection on the land and its people and their doubtful future in a society dominated by consumer individualism,” Malone once wrote..
When not teaching at MSU or writing, Corriel serves as creative director of the Paul Harris and Marguerite Kirk Gallery, located behind Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade. It is open by appointment only. “In the last few years, I’ve discovered a deep love for art curation,” she says. “The family of Paul Harris [1925-2018], a postwar American artist, has given me a wonderful opportunity to highlight his work alongside some of the best contemporary artists in the state, which opens with a new show every three months.”
Not long ago, Mountain Journal had a conversation with Corriel.
Writer and art historian Michele Corriel at home in Montana
Todd Wilkinson: First of all, congratulations on the critical praise your book has received. How does art reflect the culture, values and story of people living in a certain region at a certain stretch of time?
MICHELE CORRIEL: Art is often the only piece of the past that can tell us about a culture. Take for example the Venus of Willendorf from 25,000 BCE. It tells us how they thought of beauty and what was important to them. The small limestone sculptures of voluptuous women could be carried (re: hunter/gatherers) and archeologists believe they were fertility charms (furthering the survival of the species). Large hipped women meant successful childbearing, so we can surmise a lot from that single piece of art. The same goes for today. As an art historian and a contemporary art writer I think about the past and I ponder what today’s art says about our current times.
But there is a further reflection of art: It reveals the way we see our own identity, which is strongly tied to storytelling. The Montana Modernists were the first generation after WWII who attempted to deconstruct the prevailing “western” narrative and put it into a broader, modern context. By providing that context people can begin to understand their place within that story. The Montana Modernists provided a fresh canvas on which all Montanans could see themselves —whether in a backyard or on the back forty.
"When the Land Belonged to God," an oil painting by Charles M. Russell. Russell often reflected on the changes the marked the difference between the aboriginal West and the so-called "Old West" defined by settlers pouring into the region. Russell had an appreciation for nature. Many of his "cowboy and Indian" scenes, however, are considered passe. This painting is part of the Montana Historical Society's permanent McKay Collection. For years this work hung in the Montana Senate.
TW: We inhabit a realm—the interior of the American West—that often is cloaked in the shadow of a mythological West reinforced by certain popularized, polarizing and sometimes maligned art imagery. What's your take, living in a state where Charles M. Russell's 19th century and early 20th century paintings reside in the state capitol and his bison skull on Montana's commemorative US quarter?
CORRIEL: I believe the myth of the West highjacked the narrative of what it’s like to live in the contemporary West. It goes back to the dude ranches and the selling of the West to non-westerners, and that need to believe that Montana is a state of only horse-riding, spur-wearing, rugged individuals that continues to this day. Montanans are not unique in being tough – unfortunately that happens everywhere.
Personally, I was covering art in the region for many years and became so frustrated that the wonderful, rich, exciting and transformative art I saw that had nothing to do with Montana stereotypes— and not getting the attention it deserved. It’s like cultural appropriation—it takes up all the oxygen in the room; one stereotypical painting sold is money that could have supported emerging art.
Many of Montana’s great contemporary artists have to go outside of the state to sell their work, which speaks to the difficulty for artists to color outside the lines of “sellable” artwork.
"All of the Montana Modernists were teachers, which not only gave them voices but offered the opportunity to come into contact with younger artists looking for avenues to talk about the world in ways that Charlie Russell just couldn’t do." —Michele Corriel
TW: The name of your book is "Montana Modernists" and its subtitle is "Shifting Perceptions of Western Art." So that our readers understand, what does the word modernist mean to you? And how have perspectives on Western art shifted and how do they continue to shift?
CORRIEL: Modernism started, basically, once photography was available to the public. There was no longer a need to reproduce things exactly as they were. Artists started to think about how to show, really show the light? How can I paint a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface? How can I show movement? How can I show perspective without illusions? In other words, they wanted to get to a truth or an essence of a thing – not a stagnant image but something that had meaning by itself (not a painting of something, but the painting itself would be the something.) Modernism spanned 100 years of art history, so this is extremely condensed.
TW: Indeed, and that’s difficult to do. How did you steel your focus with Modern Modernists?
CORRIEL: When people think of Montana art, they do not think of these artists. Most people are very surprised when they realize these artists were making this work in Montana in the 1940s/50s. They are often abstract or non-objective paintings, based on their sense of place. The shift comes when people begin to understand that Montana is not one thing. It can evoke all the emotions, and therefore needs a diverse set of genres to tell that story. My hope is that this book widens people’s understanding of “western” art, shifting the paradigm of what is considered “western”.
Top: "East Fiddler Creek" (1967) by Isabelle Johnson. Just above: "Calves, Winter" (1950) also by Johnson. Both images courtesy of the Yellowstone Art Museum
TW: You use six artists to provide a lens for the book and in your preface you set the context by referencing "Montana's avant-garde."
CORRIEL: The modernists in the book are the six I chose, but there were many more. These were just the six I decided to concentrate on. My hope is that this book is a jumping off point.
TW: "The West" as it’s often presented is one that begins in its interpretation with contact between indigenous people and those who colonized North America but, in fact, human history extends back twice as long, at least, as the age of the Egyptian pyramids. Before we get to the artists, riff a bit on what those who are counted in the avant-garde faced in terms of resistance from the so-called status quo, and why the breakthrough of those eviscerating boundaries of thinking matters.
CORRIEL: First of all, it was a rare thing for these artists to sell their work. They mostly traded with each other. The only person buying Modernist art in Montana was Miriam Sample. She started a foundation that would buy art and give it to museums in the state so they could have great Montana art in their collections. But honestly if she didn’t buy art some of those artist might not have survived. As in the past, many artists – like Caravaggio (whose patrons included a Cardinal of the church) or Jean Jacques David (whose patron included the Emperor Napolean) were saved by their patrons – who thankfully kept those artists and their work alive.
So, I would say Montana’s avant-garde faced huge resistance in the mainstream. However, that resistance actually pulled them together. It made them stronger. They created a community for artists, dancers, poets, writers, playwrights, musicians, etc. And that is a very big aspect of this book and this story. Without a strong art community artists cannot exist – and that is a lesson for every generation.
"Western Painting" (1976) by Robert DeWeese. Image courtesy of the DeWeese family
TW: You chose Isabelle Johnson, Bill Stockton, Jessie Wilber, Frances Senska, Robert DeWeese and Gennie DeWeese to provide fodder for your theme and illustrate it. To those reading this and who may be unfamiliar with their work, please provide a brief description of each and why you selected them.
CORRIEL: In deciding on how to define Montana Modernism, I winnowed it down to the things the artists all had in common: Place (Montana), artistic lineage (education) and community. By using that as my three-legged stool, it was easier to understand how these artists contributed to the legacy of art in the state.
Isabelle Johnson was a cattle rancher in the Absorkees who painted – or perhaps she was a painter who ranched. In all the research and interviews I did for the book, people could not decide which she loved more … and that’s what makes her so great … because she loved them both so much. When she wasn’t ranching, she searched out schools to learn more, whether it was history or art. She was one of the first students of the famous experimental Skowhegan art school in Maine. But she always returned to her ranch on the Stillwater River. A curator once told me that he learned to love Montana by studying her artwork.
Bill Stockton was a sheep rancher in Grass Range, Montana, and lived the life of a rancher. He understood the land he worked better than most, and it showed in the abstracted ways he painted them. Often using cattle markers for his medium, to me, it feels like a direct commentary on the ranching life.
Jessie Wilber is primarily known as a printmaker, and in the true sense of Modernism made art about the things she loved in her life: cats sunning themselves in a garden, birds, trees, and the Hungarian partridges that she often spied in coveys around her home.
Top: "The River (Don't Dam It) (1977) woodblock print byJessie Wilbur. Above: "Cats in Garden" (1950), also by Wilber. Images courtesy Montana State University School of Art
Frances Senska is a ceramicist whose work is known internationally. She understood early on that ceramics would become important in the arts (not just a “craft”) and started the ceramics program at MSU. For me, it is her unrelenting thirst for knowledge, and the way she went about discovering how to make clay by digging it herself, how to engage her students by taking them out in the field, and how she approached her own pots with a kind of Bauhaus aesthetic of function + art.
Robert DeWeese had a way of approaching the world through his art that is unchallenged today. He always said an artist had the responsibility to respond to his environment. His multitude of sketches really speaks to that, and in doing so, he was able to help create a community of artists.
Gennie DeWeese with her large oil stick landscapes and non-objective paintings take my breath away. Yes, they are lush, they are gorgeous, but they are Montana. She was an advocate for artists, especially young artists, and, as a mother of five children, still found time to work in her studio. You’ve got to admire that!
Art friends: Frances Senska, left, Leila Autio and Gennie DeWeese, right, at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, 1993.
TW: Recently, you said that although all six have passed, you were fortunate to know one of them. How important was that in writing this book?
CORRIEL: I knew Gennie DeWeese personally. She would often give me a list of young artists that I should write about – she was a strong art advocate. But, to answer the question, after five years of research and writing I feel like I know all of them. I refer to them by their first names and I am constantly having conversations with them in my head.
In getting to know them it was imperative for me to understand each of them, where they came from, who they studied art with, what connected them to each other and to Montana. As a person who lives and works in Montana, it allowed me to see myself in different ways. They opened the gate and gave me permission to be a Montanan without having to buy into the stereotypes.
Top: "Chicken Wine Set" by Frances Senska. Just above: "Ring Necked Bottle" (1966) also by Senska. Images courtesy of Anthony Waller and Brian Oglesbee.
TW: Montana State University, perhaps surprising to some, served an important catalytic role in the emergence of a new kind of artistic interpretation not only of the West, but in boldly bringing forth expression tied to the wider world. Some of the subjects in your book are part of that. How did that happen?
CORRIEL: It was a confluence of a few things, one in particular is the GI Bill that paid for veterans to get a college education. Those veterans had experienced World War II, and then came home to the Cold War and threats of atomic mutual destruction. This type of Zeitgeist shaped the postwar era, especially in art. At MSU, as with many land grant universities, due to an exponential influx of students, the art department expanded, opening up not only new curriculum, but incorporating new teaching styles that included a very egalitarian pedagogy. This in turn created a vital art community, which nurtured new and exciting artwork. Nothing was off the table, and I credit the Montana Modernists with opening up a generation of artists to the ideas of a wider world.
TW: The artists in your book not only had avid collectors but they have influenced generations of other artists.
CORRIEL: All of the Montana Modernists were teachers, which not only gave them voices but offered the opportunity to come into contact with younger artists looking for avenues to talk about the world in ways that Charlie Russell just couldn’t do.
Top: "Clear Cut" (199) by Gennie DeWeest. Above: "Clover Year" (1998) also by DeWeese. Images courtesy Missoula Art Museum and Eric Overlie
TW: You have written, as I have for many different art publications. And as an art historian and writer, you have also opened a gallery. What is your sense of where collectors are in their tastes and where the art market is? Is there a difference between people who have lived in the Rockies for a while versus the tidal wave of newcomers, some of whom are building trophy homes with huge wall space to hang art?
CORRIEL: There’s always been those whose taste runs toward historical paintings, but in my conversations with artists, collectors, and gallerists, more and more people are open to contemporary work, while still being conscious of Montana aesthetics. It also depends on the reason for buying art: some buy as an investment, to add to their existing collections; others buy art because they love it, because they are connected to it.
TW: Is what's happening in Montana also occurring in Wyoming and Idaho, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and other states?
CORRIEL: I have to approach this question with an eye toward history:
New Mexico had a wonderful Modernist movement that started there with Georgia O’Keeffe’s artist colony funded by Mabel Dodge Luhan that attracted many artists from all over the world to Taos. Colorado had the Broadmoor Art Academy (1919 – 1970) which drew artists to the Rocky Mountains. Today, Wyoming has the Ucross Foundation artist residency. Boulder and Fort Collins in Colorado are widely recognized for their contemporary art. Idaho is a bit more conservative, although Sun Valley seems to be the exception. But, overall, I think the West has an uphill climb. It is so hard to breakaway from the mythology that surrounds the West, especially when buyers still want those kinds of trophies on their walls.
Although Deborah Butterfield, who lives in Bozeman, is not featured in Corriel's book, her work is admired immensely by the author. Butterfield has been at the forefront of a naturalistic movement in contemporary art where found objects are used to create sculpture. Butterfield's works are in major public and private art collections around the world. This 1989 piece, "Berliner," is in the Whitney Western Art Museum's permanent collection in Cody, Wyoming.
TW: I want to put in a plug here for a great non-profit led by a friend named Lori Pourier that has flown under the radar and yet has had a profound impact in connecting indigenous artists across North America with collectors. Her organization, First Peoples Fund, has not only provided a support network for creativity but it has helped artists of all media, working into two and three dimensions, succeed as businesspeople. First Peoples Fund has helped indigenous artists, especially previously little known artists, thrive and gain visibility in ways they couldn’t before.
CORRIEL: I might add that contemporary Native American artists are really having their day in the sun. I could name a dozen great Native artists in each of the Western states. And honestly, it’s about time that corner of the art world got some recognition.
TW: Do you see great art being produced today that speaks to our time, and to places in the interior West that are undergoing profound change as wild and pastoral places are under enormous human pressure? What role can art play in opening peoples' eyes?
CORRIEL: Yes, I do see great art being made today! Just to name a scant few: Ann Applebee’s paintings speak about nature and our responsibility to nature. Terry Karson’s talk about consumerism and our addiction to over-loaded landfills. Jaune Quick to See Smith, who recently had a retrospective at the Whitney Museum, uses her experiences in Montana to talk about contemporary Native life. Sara Mast’s work speaks to the overwhelming amount of plastic in the world, and is a call to action for using less of it. Deborah Butterfield’s work examined how our relationships with animals change our perspective. Jay Schmidt speaks about the corrupt politics in our country. There are and always will be champions of our state and our wild lands, but we have to continue to support them.
In line with Correl's expansive view of what art from the West can be, Mountain Journal has featured several contemporary artists who make nature and wildlife central muses. At top: an interactive work by Ben Pease (Crow/Northern Cheyenne) and Jim Madden remind viewers that Bozeman Creek is an important lifeway for biodiversity in the Gallatin Valley. Middle: Painter Chatherine Coutenaye recently had a show in Bozeman and one of the works was this piece, 'Trajectory of the Falcon." Just above: this work by Harrison, Idaho artist titled "Mayday!" won top honors at the Autry Museum's 2023 Masters of the American West exhibition and was acquired for its permanent collection thanks to the generosity of several patrons.
TW: Who is on your dream list?
CORRIEL: Which one do I wish I had? That’s a very long list. Let’s just say whenever I’m in NYC I spend a lot of time at the Museum of Modern Art in front of the Max Ernst paintings, especially "Two Children are Threatened by a Nightengale." That’s where I learned that I don’t have to stay within the frame.
TW: Every person who writes about art I know has pieces in their own home. Who are some of Michele Corriel's favorites? Why? And if you could afford/had an opportunity to put a handful of deceased artists' works on your wall or a pedestal, who would they be?
Some of my favorite pieces include work by Jerry Iverson, Sara Mast, Catherine Courtenaye, Terry Karson…I have a large painting by Gennie DeWeese that I treasure, and two of Frances Senska’s huns that I look at every day. I have a lovely teapot collection in my kitchen where I often lose myself in thought. I have two Michael Haykin paintings, a painting and a sketch by Diana Tremaine, (I have a lot of art!) I have a few Josh DeWeese pieces, and one Dean Adams piece, one Jeremy Hatch porcelain piece, a couple of pieces by sculptor Gabriel Kulka, a Carrie French painting, a few Tom Ferris photographs, a few oil paintings by my sister, Nicole Corriel, some small sculptures by Dave Kirk, and a lot more. I don’t want leave anyone out, because I love them all.
TW: Why does art matter?
CORRIEL: Art brings awareness to viewers, it uncovers the beauty of desolate places, and it gives us hope, inspiration, and alternative life choices.
About Todd Wilkinson
Todd Wilkinson, founder of Mountain Journal, is author of the book Ripple Effects: How to Save Yellowstone and American's Most Iconic Wildlife Ecosystem. Wilkinson has been writing about Greater Yellowstone for 35 years and is a correspondent to publications ranging from National Geographic to The Guardian. He is author of several books on topics as diverse as scientific whistleblowers and Ted Turner, and a book about the harrowing story of Jackson Hole grizzly mother 399, the most famous bear in the world which features photographs by Thomas Mangelsen. For more information on Wilkinson, click here. (Photo by David J Swift).
