Crown of the Continent:
Glacier National Park Exhibition Room
Rotating Displays 

The Hockaday Museum is proud to host a permanent exhibition room focused solely on the art and culture of Glacier National Park. This permanent exhibit opened January 15, 2004. The gallery made its debut with works by past and present-day photographers, sculptors, and painters of the Park, as well as collectibles produced for marketing the park in its early years. The art in this exhibition changes from time to time, but always features the art of Glacier National Park. 

Artists include: Leonard Lopp, Ralph Earl DeCamp, Joe Abbrescia, Marshall Noice, Tom Sander, Ace Powell, N.A. Forsyth, J. L. Clarke, Winold Reiss, T.J. Hileman, Sheryl Bodily, Herman Schnitzmeyer, Robert A.M. Stevens, and Thomas English.

Bighorns, Glacier National Park by Joe Abbrescia 
Oil on Canvas 20 X 16 inches

The exhibit reopened on October 27, 2005 after being closed since June 2005 for the Winold Reiss: Artist for the Great Northern exhibit. The newly installed Crown of the Continent – The Glacier National Park Gallery features works by significant authors, photographers, and painters as well as collectibles of Glacier National Park, including vintage maps and hand-tinted photographs. The new installation exhibits works from the Museum’s Permanent Collection as well as some long-term loans. Artists include Winold Reiss, Ralph Earl DeCamp, Joe Scheurle, Fred Kiser, T.J. Hileman, Roland Reed, John Clarke, Thomas English, Joe Abbrescia, along with James Willard Schultz, George Bird Grinnell, Mary Roberts Rinehart and many others. The focus of the Glacier National Park Gallery is to capture the nostalgia and grandeur of Glacier that today still attracts so many artists seeking to portray its greatness.

Elizabeth Davey was born in Deer Lodge, July 1, 1890. Her life was spent in early Montana settlements with "braid" Indian neighbors. She was educated in Butte and received her art education at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, returning to Montana and marrying afterwards. During 1924-1925 she painted eighteen children's murals for the Montana State Hospital. 
After 1931 she specialized in Native American portraits, particularly of Blackfeet tribal members, having produced more than a thousand water colors, oils, murals and sculptures. Admission to her lectures was frequently a donation of clothing and other necessities for needy families. 
She was adopted by the Blackfeet and given the name Netchitaki which translates as Woman Alone In Her Way. The Blackfeet said, She came to us from over the Western mountains, this white woman. She was friendly and understanding. We brought her into the medicine teepee and made her our sister. 
She later recalled her days at the Great Northern Summer Art School, studying with Winold Reiss: 
I got acquainted with the Indians. I found them so paintable that I've done them ever since. I've done hundreds, maybe thousands. Every summer after (1931) I either took the children or left them home with the maid, and I went to Glacier or the Flathead, or somewhere to paint Crow, Nez Perce, Blackfeet, Assiniboine. I spent all summer chasing Indians. 
From 1937 to 1939, Lochrie painted some historic murals in the post offices at Burley and Saint Anthony, Idaho and in Dillon and Galen, Montana. From 1936 to 1939, she was staff artist for the Great Northern Railroad in Glacier National Park. She and her family lived in Deer Lodge, Helena, Spokane, Washington, and Butte. 

They lived at 1102 West Granite Street in Helena for forty years - it was her home, gallery and studio. She received letters addressed only "E. Lochrie, Montana." People from all over the world came to see her paintings. Once a Blackfeet family reportedly pitched a tepee in the back yard. When asked, "How did you ever manage to rear a family and find time to paint also?" she said: I never stopped painting for a minute. Even when my hands were busy and I couldn't sketch, I was seeing compositions in my mind, studying colors. It's all part of the painting process.

Sharpshooters Closing On The Herd
  by Howard Terpning
 

Oil on Canvas 66" x 52"

On loan from a private collection.
Come visit the Hockaday's Elevator Gallery and see this full-sized masterpiece by Howard Terpning, a member of the Cowboy Artists of America.

Mr. Terpning had a successful career as a commercial artist, contributing to some of the best-designed movies in history,  like Dr. Zhivago, Guns of Navarone, Sound of Music, Cleopatra, and A Man For All Seasons  before moving to Arizona and turning his hand to painting Western Art in the mid - 1970's.