CALL OF THE WILD VALUED SPECIES: ANIMALS IN THE ART OF ANDY WARHOL AND AI WEIWEI
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC 50 GREATEST WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHS
Although decades and countries apart, these two artists have similarities.
Wildlife photography from six continents.
WESTERN VISIONS SHOW & SALE The Museum’s biggest annual fundraiser is setting records this year.
First Word In 2000, Gigi Halloran “was just looking for something to do,” when she started docent training at the Museum. “I didn’t know much about wildlife art, and I wanted an intellectual challenge,” she says. Today, Halloran, who was the 2017 Volunteer of the Year, still volunteers as a docent and is also a Museum Trustee. One of her favorite works in the permanent collection is Kathryn Turner’s Three Matriarchs.
I love Kathryn Turner’s work because it is timeless—neither contemporary nor traditional, but very much uniquely Kathryn. Three Matriarchs grabbed me the first time I saw it. It was so moody and complex, and the nature of the scene so mysterious. The elk are clearly crossing a stream in the early morning, but the rest of the environment is very abstract.” – Kathryn Mapes Turner (United States, b. 1971), Three Matriarchs, 2015. Oil on canvas. 36 x 60 inches. National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Kathryn Mapes Turner.
Dear Friends, This past year was likely the most challenging in the 34-year history of the National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States. On March 16, 2020, the Museum proactively closed for the health and safety of its staff and the Jackson Hole community. Almost immediately though, Staff, Trustees, and Volunteers worked vigilantly planning for how the Museum could again safely welcome visitors. Thanks to these united efforts, we were fortunate to be able to reopen to the public with limited hours in June 2020. Our intent was to provide a respite from the challenges and concerns of the world and to allow visitors to enjoy nature through the eyes of the many artists represented in our collection. As
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exciting as this was, the major milestone was this past May, when we reopened seven days a week.
We can now anticipate with excitement the exhibits and events of the coming year. This year’s Western Visions® Show & Sale is setting a record for the number of participating artists—almost 150—and is on track to be our largest fundraising event yet. Our Curator of Art, Tammi Hanawalt, PhD, has created an exhibit from works in our permanent collection that, after this summer, will travel to six other museums across the country; Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art hangs at the Museum until August 22, 2021. The exhibit likely to garner the most attention this year is Valued Species: Animals in the Art of Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei, which showcases Warhol’s Endangered Species portfolio alongside contemporary works of animals by Ai Weiwei. Twelve sculptures by Ai, of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, were on display on our Sculpture Trail in 2015 and early 2016. Ai reinterpreted this series using Legos, and these large panels will hang alongside Warhol’s silkscreen prints. We’re always grateful for supporters, and our gratitude has increased exponentially over this past year. It is because of them that we are able to continue to push ourselves to become the world’s premier repository of wildlife art. We can’t wait to see you back at the Museum, enjoying our fabulous permanent collection and temporary exhibits.
STEVE SEAMONS Museum Director
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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
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Museum Director Steve Seamons
Shawn Harris created torn-paper illustrations in A Polar Bear in the Snow.
Engaging During Covid-19
The Museum’s new Bisoncast video series shares the collection with the world and shows how works of art connect to the natural world today.
The Museum was shuttered and came up with new ways to engage with the public.
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Letter
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Bisoncast
Plein Air Fest, Etc.
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June 2021 marks the 10th annual Plein Air Fest, Etc. and the first in-person event since the pandemic.
Dr. Tammi Hanawalt has assumed the position of Curator of Art.
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Meet the Museum’s Curator of Art
Bull-Bransom Award
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Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art This temporary exhibit includes work by contemporary artists who consider wildlife in exciting and thought-provoking ways.
New Acquisition: Bison im Wald Three works by Richard Friese have been added to the permanent collection.
Call of the Wild is published annually by: The National Museum of Wildlife Art, 2820 Rungius Road, Jackson, WY 83001. Published June 2021, Issue 34
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Valued Species: Animals in the Art of Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei Although decades and countries apart, these two artists have similarities.
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National Geographic 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs Wildlife photography from six continents.
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While They’re Sleeping: A Story of Bears Bear-inspired works from the permanent collection.
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A temporary exhibit featuring science- and arachnid-inspired artwork.
The Museum’s biggest annual fundraiser is setting records this year.
Woven Together: Art & Arachnids
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New Acquisitions Borealis by Raven Skyriver and He Xi’s Chasing Fish
Western Visions® Show & Sale
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Events & Activities First Sundays; Yoga on the Trail; and Fables, Feathers & Fur.
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COVER: Andy Warhol (United States, 1928– 1987). Endangered Species: Pine Barrens Tree Frog, 1983. Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board. 38 x 38 inches. Gift of the 2006 Collectors Circle, an Anonymous Donor, and the Art Acquisitions Fund. National Museum of Wildlife Art, M2006.033.009 © 2021 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Courtesy Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY.
2020 Blacktail Gala Stewart Steinhauer (Canada, b. 1952), Buffalo Mountain, 2015. Granite. 49 x 74 x 28 inches. Purchased with funds donated by Lynn and Foster Friess with additional assistance from the National Museum of Wildlife Art Acquisition Fund. © Stewart Steinhauer. Stewart Steinhauer (Canada, b. 1952), Little Buffalo Mountain, 2015. Granite. 25 x 36 x 14 inches. Purchased with Funds Donated by Lynn and Foster Friess with additional assistance from the National Museum of Wildlife Art Acquisition Fund. © Stewart Steinhauer.
Cover reproduction is a detail.
Plein Air Fest, Etc. National Geographic 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs, photo by Paul Nicklen Above: Robert MCauley (United States, b. 1946), The Only West Left is in Your Head, 2014. Oil on canvas on panel. 24 x 36 inches. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Robert MCauley.
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CALL OF THE WILD MANAGING EDITOR Dina Mishev ART DIRECTOR AND DESIGNER Elise Mahaffie COPY EDITOR Bevin Wallace PERMISSIONS RESEARCHER Emily Winters CHIEF ADVANCEMENT OFFICER Ponteir Sackrey
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CONTRIBUTORS
PONTEIR SACKREY Chief Advancement Officer
JENNIFER TREMBLAY Marketing Manager
ELIZABETH COGBURN BIRNIE Major Gifts Officer
A longtime member of the Jackson Hole nonprofit community, Ponteir brings many years of philanthropic experience to the Museum. As its first Chief Advancement Officer, Ponteir oversees the Development, Marketing, and Programs & Events departments that are collectively growing audiences and supporters. Deeply committed to the local community, Ponteir serves on Womentum’s Board of Directors, Old Bill’s Fun Run Committee, and the First Interstate Bank Advisory Board. She is a former board chair of the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce and Jackson Hole Joint Powers Travel and Tourism Board.
The Museum’s Marketing Manager, Jennifer Tremblay, has been with the Museum and in Jackson for over three years. Following her love of art and museums, she pursued masters degrees in Museum Studies and Art Administration from Syracuse University. Working at NMWA and living in Jackson has allowed her to combine a passion for the arts with a love for the outdoors. She manages the Museum’s website, social media, press releases, and group tours. On weekends she’s out exploring hiking trails or floating down the Snake River.
Elizabeth studied art and art history at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. This, combined with her keen eye for design and being a new member of the Museum’s Development Team, made her a natural for the role of photo procurement director for this issue of Call of the Wild. Originally from Atlanta, Elizabeth has been a Jackson Hole resident for more than a decade. She loves living in the West, especially gardening in the summer months and skiing and ice fishing in the winter with her family.
MARKETING MANAGER Jennifer Tremblay
© 2021 National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be used in violation of any of the copyrights provided under current law including, but not limited to, reproduction or copying in any form or by any means, such as graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, or informational storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States.
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MANAGER OF MEMBERSHIP & PLANNED GIFTS Eunice Nicholson
JULIA VANDENOEVER
MAJOR GIFTS OFFICER Elizabeth Cogburn Birnie
EUNICE NICHOLSON Manager of Membership & Planned Gifts After earning a communications degree from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Eunice, who has a passion for relationship building, landed a position with the communications team at Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s (MADD) national headquarters in Irving, Texas. She later joined the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Texas as a fund-raiser. In March of 2020, she proudly joined the Museum’s development staff and currently manages membership and planned giving. Canadian born, Eunice grew up in upstate New York and spent most of her adult life in the DallasFort Worth metroplex. She and her husband, Bob, live in Hoback.
DINA MISHEV Managing Editor
Elise Mahaffie
A native of Maryland, Dina Mishev moved to Jackson Hole for one year after graduating from Northwestern University; she celebrates her 24th anniversary in the valley this summer. Dina also edits Jackson Hole magazine and Under Canvas. Her writing regularly appears in The Washington Post’s Travel Section, and Dina was a 2020 finalist for the Global Travel Media Alliance’s “Global Travel Writer of the Year” award. (She did not win.) Her third book, Roadtrip Yellowstone, includes an interview with the Museum’s former Chief Curator of Art, Dr. Adam Duncan Harris.
An experienced graphic designer and oil painter, Elise has always had a passion for publication design, and she is thrilled to be part of this project. She has worked with many local, regional, and national clients creating award-winning designs and marketing materials through Mahaffie Marketing, which she and her husband founded in 1990. Elise is the art director for Jackson Hole magazine, which launched a redesign this summer. When not crunching on deadlines, Elise often walks the Snake River levee with her two Bernese mountain dogs. If not there, she is skiing, hiking, biking, or in front of her easel, painting.
Art Director and Designer
MUSEUM STAFF Eunice Nicholson Manager of Membership & Planned Gifts
Kim Andrews Accounting Manager Tiffany Bajor Executive Assistant to the Museum Director
Stefanie Nishio Events Coordinator Sari Ann Platt Associate Curator of Education & Outreach
Gayle Bartlett Museum Shop Associate Elizabeth Cogburn Birnie Major Gifts Officer
GENERAL INFORMATION 2820 Rungius Road, Jackson, WY 83001 Located 2.5 miles north of the Jackson Town Square 307-733-5771 • WildlifeArt.org
Ponteir Sackrey Chief Advancement Officer
Margaret Creel Grants Manager
Carrie Schwartz Museum Education, Interpretation, & Design Consultant
Luis Diaz Security Services
MUSEUM HOURS May–October 2021 Open Daily • 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Rachel Smith Coordinator of Volunteer Resources
Tim Diaz Security Services Michelle Dickson Director of Programs & Events
November 2021–April 2022 Tuesday to Saturday • 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Sundays • 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Closed Mondays
Elizabeth Frates Preparator Kerrie Garner Assistant Shop Supervisor
OUR MISSION To impart knowledge and inspire appreciation of humanity’s relationship with wildlife and nature through art and education.
Tammi Hanawalt, PhD Curator of Art
Mike Hofhiens Director of Operations
Victor Tzompa-Hernandez Custodian/Maintenance
Marc Weimar Security Services
Daniel Knight Supervisor of Admissions & Visitor Services
Emily Winters Registrar
Jane Lavino Sugden Chief Curator of Education Wendy Merrick Manager of Events
The National Museum of Wildlife Art is an accredited member of the American Alliance of Museums.
Ernesto Tzompa-Hernandez Custodian/Maintenance
Madison Webb Director of Marketing
Lisa Holmes Chief Financial Officer
OUR VALUES Integrity, Excellence, Collaboration, Transparency, Accountability, and Financial Responsibility
Jennifer Tremblay Marketing Manager
Debbie Vassar Director of Retail Operations & Visitor Services
Carolyn Hawxhurst Museum Shop Associate
OUR VISION To be the world’s premier repository of wildlife art.
Lisa Simmons Former Associate Curator of Art
Kelsey Wotzka Development Coordinator Dustin Zuege Security Services
Robert Mull Director of Facility & Security Services
MUSEUM BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND OFFICERS CHAIRMAN EMERITUS William G. Kerr
CHAIRMAN Richard Beck
TRUSTEES Jan Benz Tasso Coin Sue Simpson Gallagher Jim Gersack Gigi Halloran Mary Jane Hunt Des Jennings Lisa Jennings Avi Kantor Scott Kirkpatrick
Carol Linton Adrienne Mars Pam Niner Peter Safir Charlotte Stifel Caroline Taylor Marcia Taylor Georgene Tozzi Suzanne Whitmore
VICE CHAIRMAN Laurent Roux
TREASURER Nada Jain
TRUSTEE EMERITI Mary Barnes Howell Breedlove Stephanie Brennan Roger Craton Mary Anne Cree Jack Fritz Richard P. Johnston
SECRETARY Lindy Sayers
Joffa Kerr Kavar Kerr Dick O’Leary Julie Obering Debbie Petersen Maggie Scarlett Suzanne Young
MUSEUM DIRECTOR Steve Seamons LIFE TRUSTEES Bob Jaycox Bob McCloy Charlie Mechem
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ENGAGING DURING COVID-19
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t is fortunate for the Museum that Jackson Hole is such an art-centered place. During the pandemic, we had a dedicated staff, and donors and community members who stood by us in the uncertainty and stress of this unprecedented time. We are beyond thankful for all of the support we have received,” says the Museum’s Curator of Art, Dr. Tammi Hanawalt. “It’s predicted that about 30 percent of all museums will not reopen after Covid-19, but we are still here. It’s really wonderful to be able to continue to share our remarkable collection of wildlife art with the public.” The National Museum of Wildlife Art proactively closed to the public for the safety of its staff and the Jackson Hole community on March 16, 2020. There was a two-month time period when the majority of the staff was instructed to work from home and to come in only if absolutely necessary. In June 2020, the Museum reopened with limited hours, and staff members were given the choice of working at the Museum or from home. In-person events were rethought. The annual Plein Air Fest, Etc. held every June on the Museum’s Sculpture Trail, was converted to an online event. The Western Visions Show & Sale, a September event that is the Museum’s largest annual fundraiser,
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was also transformed into an online event. “I’m thankful the Museum was able to pivot and didn’t cancel Western Visions, and it was still exciting to be a part of, but I’m really looking forward to participating in person in 2021,” says Carrie Wild, a painter who made her Western Visions debut in 2020. (Read more about Western Visions 2021 on p. 40.)
May 1, 2021, the Museum was able to return to its pre-Covid-19 hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week. While this return to normal is welcome, when things were not normal, the Museum was not inaccessible; volunteers and staff worked hard to think of new ways to engage with the public. Read on for details.
ENGAGING DURING COVID-19
NOT EVEN COVID-19 COULD STOP HER VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT: BARB HUHN
The National Museum of Wildlife Art is the gem of Jackson Hole. A gem of the Museum is Barb Huhn, especially during the challenges of the pandemic. “For me it was a blessing to get out of the house and continue to do something that was worthwhile,” Huhn says. Eunice Nicholson, the Museum’s Manager of Membership and Planned Gifts, who often works with Huhn, says, “The entire Museum staff cares so much about her, and I can see why. Her warmth and can-do attitude are contagious!”
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Even when the virus was at its worst in Teton County and the Museum had to close to the public, Huhn still came by to pick up projects she could work on from home, most often correspondence to and from Members and Donors. She also helped the Museum with its database by updating the contact information of supporters. “I know how important it is to make sure each Member’s record is correct,” Huhn says. “It is also gratifying when they thank me for reaching out to them.”
HOW TO VOLUNTEER Nearly every department at the Museum uses volunteers, and volunteer duties can include giving docent tours or helping with special events. Contact
Huhn, who earned a degree in special education so she could work with disabled adults, has made helping others a central part of her life. A Jackson Hole resident since 1981, Huhn and her husband, Larry, built two successful grocery businesses, Jackson Food Town and Hoback Market. The couple has four grown children and one grandson. Huhn was introduced to the Museum in 2013 through a church friend. Becky Kimmel, a member of the Museum’s development team and also of the Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole, suggested Huhn might enjoy volunteering at the Museum. Huhn’s first project was assembling gift bags for attendees of Western Visions. She enjoyed this but wanted a bigger project; it wasn’t long before Huhn was at the Museum almost every week assisting the development department with correspondence, from letters acknowledging and thanking Members and Donors for their support—which generates the majority of the Museum’s operating fund—to filing backlogged letters and researching returned mail. “I wanted to do something that was meaningful,” says Huhn, who has also volunteered at the Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole and 4-H. “[At the Museum] I know I’m associated with something good in the community and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
Rachel Smith, Coordinator of Volunteer Resources at rsmith@wildlifeart.org or call 307/ 732-5443 for more information.
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ENGAGING DURING COVID-19
The Blacktail Gala was the Museum’s first big event of 2020, and also its last in-person event of the year. At the Gala, attendees voted to purchase four works for the Museum's permanent collection. Read about two of these works, Raven Skyriver’s Borealis and He Xi’s Chasing Fish, on pages 38 and 39.
Prior to Covid-19, the Museum had decided to consolidate the excitement of its biggest annual fundraiser, the Western Visions Show & Sale, to a single evening. Previously Western Visions was spread over two nights. Because of Covid-19, the single-night event was moved to a virtual format. Unchanged were the four awards given to participating artists: T. Allen Lawson, known for painting the 2008 White House Christmas card, won the Red Smith Award, which goes to the best piece in the Western Visions Show & Sale as voted by participating artists. Lawson won for his painting Winter Solitude. Swedish wildlife painter Lennart Sand won the People’s Choice Award for his painting Fighting Bison. After winning the Red Smith Award in 2019, in 2020 New Zealand-based Lindsay Scott won the Bob Kuhn Sketch Award for Leap of Faith. This award is named for a great friend of the Museum, the late Bob Kuhn, and is awarded by a panel of judges to the best submission in the category of artists’ sketches (whether by a painter or sculptor). Museum Trustees voted Montana-based John Banovich’s painting Among Giants the winner of the Show & Sale’s Trustee Purchase Award.
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ENGAGING DURING COVID-19
BULL-BRANSOM WORKSHOPS GO PRERECORDED “I would have preferred to read my book and show how I create to the kids in person, but that wasn’t yet possible,” says 2020 Bull-Bransom Award winner, Jessica Lanan, about traveling to Jackson in the spring of 2021 to do workshops with local students. The winners of the Museum’s annual Bull-Bransom Award, which is given for excellence in the field of children’s book illustration with a focus on wildlife and nature, usually visit Jackson Hole the year after being given the award. In the spring of 2020, because of the newness of Covid-19, there wasn’t time to pivot from in-person to on-line workshops with 2019 BullBransom Award winner Heidi Smith. “We had to cancel them entirely,” says Jane Lavino, the Museum's Sugden Chief Curator of Education. “But by this spring, we knew how to do engaging remote video programming.”
2020 was the ninth annual Plein Air Fest, Etc. and the first to be held virtually. The event is usually held on the Museum’s Sculpture Trail and allows the public the chance to watch and chat with about 50 artists painting en plein air, a French term that means painting outside. “It’s nice to interact with people and be around other artists, but the event going virtual did give us some freedom,” says participating painter Taryn Boals. “The location of the Museum is spectacular, and there are lots of things you can paint from there, but it was nice to have different locations to go to. And when I’m painting outside and people aren’t around, I find it very meditative, so I got to experience that meditative state instead of the excitement of being around people. It was different, but not necessarily in a bad way…at least for one year.” At the conclusion of the event, the works created were, as usual, auctioned off, but via an online format rather than an in-person auction.
Lanan, who won the award for her book The Fisherman and the Whale about a fisherman and his son who encounter a whale entangled at sea, worked with Museum staff to do a prerecorded video that students at Colter Elementary School watched. In the video, Lanan “reads” her book, which is wordless, by asking students what they think is happening on each page. At the end, she turns the camera onto her desk and demonstrates step-by-step how she creates her illustrations. The students are left with the challenge of recreating an illustration with their teachers. “It’s a lot more fun when you can see the kids you’re reading to, but I think we all learned how to make things work remotely the last year,” says Lanan, who is currently working on a book about spiders. Watch Museum Curator of Art Tammi Hanawalt chat with Lanan about The Fisherman and the Whale in a webinar on the Museum’s YouTube channel.
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ENGAGING DURING COVID-19
MAKE IT WILD Conceived of pre-Covid-19, this artmaking series taught by local and regional artists was planned to be inperson. “When we saw where things were headed though, we switched to make it an online program,” says Jane Lavino, the Museum’s Sugden Chief Curator of Education. “Some of our events and programs wouldn’t work well online, but we thought this one would.” And it did: “Taking it online allowed us to serve more people from more places. We had people in every time zone across the country, and, with each class, we were able to reach way more people than we would have been able to fit into our classroom,” Lavino says. “I think the audience at home could see the instructor artist more clearly than if they had been one of 15 people crowded around a table at the Museum, too.”
Kathryn Turner demonstrates gesture technique.
Taking it online allowed us to serve more people from more places. We had people in every time zone across the country, and, with each class, we were able to reach way more people than we would have been able to fit into our classroom.” — J ANE LAVINO, Sugden Chief Curator of Education
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In addition to being virtual, each class— there were four, one each month between December and March—was recorded, allowing at-home-artists the choice between participating live or purchasing access to the recording of it and doing the workshop at their leisure. The average class size was between 20 and 25 at the live workshop; another 30 to 35 purchased the recording. All registration and recording fees benefitted the Museum’s Art Leadership Scholarship in Honor of the Memory of Dick Jennings, a former Museum board member. The $4,000 scholarship is awarded annually to a local high school senior who plans to study art at the college level. “People were so interested in these workshops that we met our goal of raising $4,000,” Lavino says. “Everything about these workshops went so well for everyone involved that we might do them exactly the same way next year, even if inperson is an option.” It is still possible to purchase access to the recorded classes from this past winter; wildlifeart.org/ events/makeitwild.
CURATORIAL DEPARTMENT
Meet the Museum’s Curator of Art
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TAMMI HANAWALT, PHD
Dr. Tammi Hanawalt moved from her position as the Museum’s Associate Curator of Art to Curator of Art on March 16, 2020. “That was the day the Museum closed to the public,” Hanawalt says. “That will be burned in my brain forever.” As inauspicious as this start date was, Hanawalt is happy to now be in a position to continue with the work on which she and Dr. Adam Harris, the prior Curator of Art, had been collaborating since she joined the Museum staff in 2018. “After working with Adam for two years, we had projects and priorities we were excited about,” Hanawalt says. “I didn’t want to see these disappear or change. The way to make sure that didn’t happen would be if I was able to move into Adam’s position, and I felt I was prepared for the move.” One of the main goals Hanawalt has been working toward—and will continue to work toward—is having more voices represented in the Museum’s collection. “It’s important to have a diversity of views and experiences in the mix,” says Hanawalt, whose masters and PhD concentration was in Native North American art. Her dissertation, Paradox Regained: Tricksters in Native North American Art and Culture, focused on Indigenous representations of animal tricksters in art. Prior to coming to the Museum as Associate Curator of Art, Hanawalt, who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, worked as a costume designer (after completing her undergraduate degree). She taught theatre design at the University of Arizona and art history at the University of Oklahoma and the Institute of American Indian and Alaskan Art in Santa Fe. She also interned at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in 2015, under thenAssociate Curator of Art Bronwyn Minton. “I love it here,” Hanawalt says.
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EDUCATION
Bisoncast THE MUSEUM’S NEW BISONCAST VIDEO SERIES SHARES THE COLLECTION WITH THE WORLD AND SHOWS HOW WORKS OF ART CONNECT TO THE NATURAL WORLD TODAY.
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t wasn’t difficult for the Museum’s Education Department to come up with ideas for episodes of a new series of educational videos. The first brainstorming session alone ended with ideas for 62 episodes of what would be named Bisoncast. A couple of brainstorming sessions later, the group behind Bisoncast had more than 100 ideas. “Ideas were easy,” says the Museum’s Sugden Chief Curator of Education, Jane Lavino. “The hard part was deciding which to do first.” The first five Bisoncast episodes were scripted, filmed, edited, and shared on the Museum’s YouTube channel during the pandemic. “We were making these long before the pandemic, but it turned out that they were ready exactly when so many museums had to close and were looking for different ways to engage with people,” Lavino says. “From the beginning, Bisoncast was envisioned as a way of reaching audiences who can’t come to the Museum because they live at a distance or find that admission is a barrier. We never envisioned the barrier being that we couldn’t be open.”
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Each 10- to 20-minute video starts inside the Museum talking about a piece, or pieces, in its permanent collection. The second half takes advantage of the Museum’s location in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the most intact ecosystems left in the world, and shows how a theme in the artwork connects to the natural world and real lives. As of May 2021, five episodes of Bisoncast have been released (on the Museum’s YouTube channel). A sixth will come out this summer, but there is not a set production schedule. “We’ve still got our long list of ideas, and we will do them as we get funding,” Lavino says. Each episode takes about $10,000 to create. Funding comes from grants and private donors. Watch Bisoncast at wildlifeart.org/bisoncast.
Bisoncast has been made possible by the Tony Greene Memorial Art Education Fund, Cynthia & Dick Quast, Smart Family Fund, and Hearst Foundations and is supported, in part, by a grant from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, a program of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources. The Museum is excited to work with Mountain Mind Media to bring Bisoncast to life.
EDUCATION
“The Slipperiness of Fish”
“Buffalo Mountain”
“Where There’s Smoke”
The first Bisoncast video created, this episode connects a still life of dead fish, Still Life: Cod and Mackerel by American painter William Merritt Chase, with the life in the rivers and streams around Jackson Hole. Chase often told students of his, “Do not paint the grandiose thing. Paint the commonplace so that it will be distinguished.” Lisa Simmons, the Museum’s Associate Curator of Art, and Museum Education, Interpretation, and Design Consultant Carrie Schwartz explain how Still Life: Cod and Mackerel does exactly that, and then the women head to the Teton River in Idaho with angler Brad Parker to see species of fish native to our ecosystem.
“Contemporary Native artists like Stewart Steinhauer offer valuable perspectives about ways in which animals convey personal and cultural stories, values, and beliefs,” Simmons says. This episode starts on the Museum’s Sculpture Trail, with a young boy (Simmons’s son, Alder) crawling over—and through— plurinational Cree Canadian artist Steinhauer’s sculptures Buffalo Mountain and Little Buffalo Mountain. Both of these are carved from granite. After listening to Steinhauer, who rejects the term “artist” in favor of “stone carver,” explain the story behind the circle within the body of Buffalo Mountain, we’re taken to visit the herd of bison that live in and around Grand Teton National Park.
A lightning-caused wildfire on the hillside behind the Museum in August 2019 keeps this episode very close to home. Viewers first learn about William Jacob Hays’s painting Prairie Fire and Buffalo Stampede and how the herd of terrified buffalo fleeing a fire might be seen as an analogy about colonists racing across the U.S. displacing Native Americans and animals along the way. Then the episode walks us out the Museum’s front entrance to look at the charred hillside with Lesley Williams-Gomez, Fire Prevention Technician for the Bridger-Teton National Forest and one of the many firefighters on scene during the fire. WilliamsGomez explains how wildlife that lives in the burned area would have reacted to the fire—ungulates fleeing while small rodents would burrow deeper into the ground—and points out the new signs of life already emerging, like rabbit brush and a wild rose.
“There’s No White in Snow” After looking closely at how Richard Friese paints snow in Arctic Wanderer and how very differently Ron Kingswood paints it in Thou Shall not Reap the Corners of Thy Field, we head outside and into the snow with artist Kathy Wipfler. Wipfler, who is represented in the Museum’s permanent collection, is a rare breed among plein air painters— she paints outside year-round, even in Wyoming’s brutally cold winters. The painter shares how she works in the cold, and then we watch her paint the snowy landscape in front of her. “A camera doesn’t read color in snow much at all,” Wipfler says. “I can see and manipulate them here on location.”
Stewart Steinhauer (Canada, b. 1952), Buffalo Mountain, 2015. Granite. 49 x 74 x 28 inches. Purchased with Funds Donated by Lynn and Foster Friess with additional assistance from the National Museum of Wildlife Art Acquisition Fund. © Stewart Steinhauer. Stewart Steinhauer (Canada, b. 1952), Little Buffalo Mountain, 2015. Granite. 25 x 36 x 14 inches. Purchased with Funds Donated by Lynn and Foster Friess with additional assistance from the National Museum of Wildlife Art Acquisition Fund. © Stewart Steinhauer.
“Above the Clouds” To be filmed in July 2021, “Above the Clouds” features paintings of mountain goats by Michael Coleman (Rocky Mountain Goats – B.C.) and by Robert Bateman (Sheer Drop) and discussion about unique adaptations that mountain goats and bighorn sheep have that enable them to be expert climbers. In the second half, we go climbing on Guides’ Wall in Grand Teton National Park with Schwartz, Simmons, and climbing guides. Since humans have not evolved to climb terrain like mountain goats and bighorn sheep, the guides demonstrate some of the gear people invented to allow them to explore this alpine environment.
“Beyond Beauty” This episode of Bisoncast inspired the creation of the exhibit Woven Together: Art & Arachnids, on display at the Museum from June 26 until October 16, 2021. (Read more about this exhibit on page 36.) The episode starts with the question, “Who decides what is beautiful and what is valuable?” and then delves into Picasso’s print L’Araigneé (the spider). By the end, when we’re wandering through sagebrush with ecologist Maggie Raboin—as she talks about discovering a new species of spider, the Mason spider, while doing field research in Jackson Hole as an undergraduate—it’s hard not to think arachnids might be the coolest wildlife around, and artists in their own right.
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PLEIN AIR FEST, ETC.
Plein Air Fest, Etc. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 2021
After going online in 2020, Plein Air Fest, Etc. is back as the start of the Museum’s summer season. Now in its tenth year, the event includes food from the Museum’s restaurant, Palate, live music, and free entrance to the Museum’s 14 galleries. Best of all, visitors have the chance to watch more than 45 artists working outside—en plein air—putting the finishing touches on their pieces. They then have the opportunity to bid on these works in a silent auction that starts at 12:30 p.m. Artists come from around the region to participate. Back this year is longtime local favorite Fred Kingwill. Other local artists participating this year include Taryn Boals, Emily Boespflug, Peggy Prugh, Kay Stratman, and Diane Lyon. Read on to learn more about Kingwill and Boals. wildlifeart.org/events/plein-air-fest-etc/
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PHOTO COURTESY OF FRED KINGWILL
PLEIN AIR FEST, ETC.
Meet Fred Kingwill Fred Kingwill has painted at every Plein Air Fest, Etc. since the event started. “I am a teacher at heart,” he says. “I love events that allow the public the opportunity to see what artists do and ask questions, and perhaps even get some inspiration. I’ve had young kids just sit or stand next to me watching, going ‘this is so cool! I can’t believe you just made that!’ I always want to paint the best painting I can paint that day, but for me the real purpose is to share.” Kingwill has been sharing his art and advice for decades. A watercolorist, he has taught classes and workshops on the medium throughout the country, including four years teaching art on a cruise ship going to Alaska. “In the arts, it is almost impossible to say what is right or wrong or good or bad,” he says. “It is sharing the process that is the most important thing. When I teach, I teach from the standpoint that we’re in
Meet Taryn Boals This will be Taryn Boals’s fourth Plein Air Fest, Etc. The Star Valley-based artist earned a Masters of Fine Art in Painting from Northwest Illinois University and was drawn to Jackson Hole nine years ago because of the valley’s wildlife. Growing up on a farm in northwest Illinois’s dairy country, Boals used horses as her first subjects. “I feel a special bond with them. I had quite a few growing up, and they are still really a big part of my life,” she says. “Painting and drawing them is very meditative to me.” It was natural for Boals to expand to paint and draw other animals. Going on to incorporate landscapes into these pieces was more difficult, though, but something she wanted to do. “I wanted to represent a more complete image of the animals, and it seemed natural to paint the landscapes they lived in,” she says. “When I do animals, I think about them anatomically. Doing that doesn’t work with landscapes though; when I paint them like that, they look very tight.”
the business of sharing our feelings with the rest of the world. Art is another form of communication. Most of us in the art world—there are a few people who make a good living at it, but most of us do it to make a better life.” In addition to sharing with the public at Plein Air Fest, Etc., Kingwill is excited to be around other artists. “Art is often a singular activity, but the Plein Air Fest reminds us that we’re a tribe, the artist tribe of Jackson,” he says. While being even more isolated during the pandemic, Kingwill says he did paint more than he ever had and feels that he grew as an artist. “I read a lot of art books, and I watched a lot of videos and painted without a reason other than wanting to paint,” he says. “Usually there’s always a show or workshop coming up that I’m painting for. During Covid-19 I just painted what I knew and loved and wanted to express. Now I’m ready to get back to sharing.” fredkingwill.com
Covid-19 helped her loosen up. “This past year has been a huge step in where I’m taking my art,” she says. “I was able to give myself the time in the studio to explore and experiment and sit with my thoughts. This led to me bringing more emotion into my artwork. I’m no longer trying to capture the landscape exactly as it is, but to paint an overall feeling.” Her first time participating in the Plein Air Fest, Etc. was also challenging. “It was terrifying,” says Boals, who was inspired to get into painting en plein air by her husband and fellow artist Travis Walker. “Plein air was relatively new to me then, and that event was my first time painting in public,” Boals says. “Since then I’ve had more opportunities to paint with people watching, and it’s gotten easier. Now, after I’ve got a painting started, I can feel the energy from people watching and incorporate it into my work, and I enjoy being able to show people how I do things. It’s exciting.” tarynboalsart.com @tary_n_it_up
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NEW ACQUISITIONS
Bison im Wald, RICHARD FRIESE
Carl Rungius, Bruno Liljefors, Wilhelm Kuhnert, and Richard Friese are known as the “Big Four” in the genre of wildlife art. Thanks to an anonymous donor, Friese’s artworks have increased in the Museum’s permanent collection by three: Bison im Wald, Hirsch im Wald, and Elch.
– Richard Friese (German, b. Russia, 1854–1918), Bison im Wald (Bison in the Forest), 1916. Watercolor on paper. 14 3/8 x 18 inches. Purchased with funding generously provided by an anonymous donor.
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Friese was born in Germany and, similarly to his Big Four colleagues, he trained as an artist in Europe. Adam Harris, the Museum’s former Chief Curator of Art and currently the Grainger/Kerr Director of the Carl Rungius Catalogue Raisonné, told journalist Todd Wilkinson, “Historically, (the Big Four) represent the first generation of Europeantrained artists who were able to actually go out and see animals in the field firsthand. Working
only a few years after Darwin published his revolutionary theory of evolution, which stressed the importance of natural habitats and behaviors, they took part in a significant change in the way we think about and represent animals. The artists who followed in their footsteps cite the work they produced as critical to their own development. The legacy of the Big Four lives on in the work of wildlife artists practicing today and will live on as long as people remain interested in representations of animals in their natural habitats.” Hirsch im Wald is a watercolor of a red deer. Bison im Wald is of a European bison—a species of which the Museum does already have some examples in its collection, “but this one from Friese gives you a very good idea
EDUCATION
BULL-BRANSOM AWARD Shawn Harris was awarded the Museum’s 2021 Bull-Bransom Award, given annually to recognize excellence in the field of children’s book illustration with a focus on wildlife and nature, for his torn-paper illustrations in A Polar Bear in the Snow. To create the illustrations, which have a tactile, textured look, Harris says, “I created dioramas out of white paper that I lit and photographed. I wanted to see if I could use uncolored paper, lighting, light, and shadow to create an Arctic universe.” Harris says some of the three-dimensional paper sculptures he photographed are six inches deep. Harris’s illustrations are accompanied by spare text written by his friend since childhood Mac Barnett. The story follows a polar bear in the Arctic. Harris says the Bull-Bransom Award means a lot to him and Barnett because it recognizes the book as a work of nonfiction about wildlife. “The book was successful right out of the gate, but it wasn’t talked about as being nonfiction or about wildlife and nature. It was accepted as an elegant, minimalist picture book,” he says. “But Mac’s words remind us that this is a real bear. We want you to care about this bear, but also realize that it is a wild animal, not a storybook character.”
about the differences between that species of bison compared to the plains bison we’re familiar with,” Dr. Tammi Hanawalt says. Elch is an etching of a moose. “Whenever we are able to add works by important artists such as Friese, it helps us to better show the history of wildlife art.”
“Being recognized with the Bull-Bransom Award shows that we were successful in creating a beautiful picture book that doesn’t avoid the complexities of the real natural world,” says Harris, whose authorial debut, Have You Ever Seen a Flower?, was published in May 2021. As past Bull-Bransom winners have done, Harris will present workshops to Teton County students (in spring 2022). “One of my favorite things about the job is getting to do art with kids,” he says.
The illustrations in this book are surprising, original, and clever. The use of materials and lighting to craft the composition of each page is masterful, and the texture of the paper layers add a pleasant sensory experience that make the book feel much more
– Richard Friese (German, b. Russia, 1854–1918), Hirsch im Wald (Deer in the Forest), 1911. Gouache on paper. 14 x 19 1/2 inches. Purchased with funding generously provided by an anonymous donor. Richard Friese (German, b. Russia, 1854–1918), Elch (Moose), 1898. Etching on copperplate printing paper. 9 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches. Purchased with funding generously provided by an anonymous donor.
colorful than it is. The use of white to hide and reveal the polar bear is both elegant and understated. The shapes are simplified, but behind the simplicity, I can see great accuracy and attention to detail.”
— JESSICA LANAN,
2020 Bull-Bransom Award winner, about A Polar Bear in the Snow
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Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art MAY 22, 2021–AUGUST 22, 2021
The following is excerpted from the Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art catalog authored by the Museum's Curator of Art, Dr. Tammi Hanawalt. One of the first projects Hanawalt took on when she was hired as the Museum’s Associate Curator of Art in 2018 was to develop an exhibition begun by the former Associate Curator, Bronwyn Minton. Minton, along with then-Curator of Art, Adam Harris, had been working for some years to expand the Museum’s acquisitions in contemporary artworks. These pieces represented a more recent wave of artists, who, in their artworks, were considering wildlife in exciting and thoughtprovoking ways, using a variety of media. After some consideration and gaining a better understanding of the permanent collection in general, Hanawalt, who moved into the position of Curator of Art in March 2020 after Harris began to work on a new Carl Rungius raisonné project, chose to further focus the story of this exhibition on the change that she and Harris felt was occurring within the work of both established artists and those who are up and coming. Thus, Un/Natural Selections was born.
– Barbara Kassel (United States, b. 1952), Wet Weather, 2012. Oil on linen. 36 x 48 inches. Gift of the 2012 Collectors Circle with additional assistance from generous Patrons, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Barbara Kassel. M2012.021
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The majority of the artworks in Un/Natural Selections were acquired for the Museum via its Collectors Circle membership group and the annual Blacktail Gala. “It was the collaboration between the Museum and its supporters that selected these artworks to be in the permanent collection,” says Curator of Art Tammi Hanawalt. “We have these artworks because of the community.”
Since perhaps the turn of the 20th century, wildlife art has been grouped together with art of the American West. This is art associated with the “last frontier,” depicting cowboys and horses and wide swaths of undeveloped land. Based in nostalgia, art of the American West sometimes presents an idealized version of American history. During the rise of Western art, wild animals, especially those living in western North America, including bison, elk, moose, and grizzly bears, were depicted in paintings in their natural habitats, as a part of the vast landscape; sculptors, meanwhile, focused more on the unique physiognomy of animals. These paintings and sculptures were found in ranch homes
and cabins, as well as in eastern mansions and businesses—wildlife art was a way to connect with nature without having to be outdoors. In 2021, however, we are living in the sixth mass extinction, in an epoch known as the Anthropocene, which is defined by human influence on the environment. In this era, humans must come to terms with not only how to survive in an ever-changing environment, but also how to maintain our evolving relationship with wildlife. Contemporary artists today are employing wild animals in their artwork to address a number of pressing concerns and are broadening notions about wildlife
Selecciones (anti)naturales: La vida silvestre en el arte contemporáneo 22 DE MAYO DE 2021–22 DE AGOSTO DE 2021 A continuación presentamos un fragmento del catálogo de Selecciones (anti)naturales: La vida silvestre en el arte contemporáneo, escrito por la Dra. Tammi Hanawalt, curadora de arte del Museo. Uno de los primeros proyectos que Hanawalt emprendió cuando la contrataron como curadora de arte asociada del Museo en 2018 fue desarrollar una exposición que la antigua curadora asociada, Bronwyn Minton, había iniciado. Minton, junto con el entonces curador de arte, Adam Harris, había estado trabajando algunos años para ampliar las adquisiciones del Museo en materia de arte contemporáneo. Estas piezas representaban a una oleada más reciente de artistas, quienes, en sus obras de arte, abordaban la vida silvestre de formas apasionantes y provocadoras, utilizando una variedad de medios. Tras reflexionar algún tiempo y comprender más profundamente la colección
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permanente en general, Hanawalt, quien ascendió al cargo de curadora de arte en marzo de 2020 después de que Harris comenzara a trabajar en un nuevo proyecto descriptivo sobre Carl Rungius, eligió centrar la historia de esta exposición aún más en el cambio que ella y Harris sentían que estaba teniendo lugar en la obra de artistas tanto establecidos como emergentes. Así nació Selecciones (anti)naturales. Quizás desde comienzos del siglo XX, el arte de la vida silvestre se ha agrupado con el arte del lejano oeste de Estados Unidos. Este tipo de arte se relaciona con la “última frontera,” y en él se representan vaqueros, caballos y vastas extensiones de tierras vírgenes. Basado en la nostalgia, el arte del lejano oeste a veces presenta una versión idealizada de la historia estadounidense. Durante el desarrollo del arte del lejano oeste, los animales salvajes, en especial aquellos que vivían
en el oeste de Norteamérica—como el bisonte, el ciervo canadiense, el alce y el oso pardo—se representaban en pinturas en sus hábitats naturales, como parte del vasto paisaje; por su parte, los escultores se interesaron más en la fisionomía única de los animales. Esta pinturas y esculturas se encontraban en ranchos y cabañas, así como en mansiones y empresas de la costa este: el arte de la vida silvestre era una forma de conectarse con la naturaleza sin tener que estar al aire libre. Sin embargo, en 2021, estamos atravesando la sexta extinción en masa, en una época conocida como Antropoceno, caracterizada por la influencia del ser humano sobre el medioambiente. En esta era, los humanos deben reconciliarse no solo con la idea de cómo sobrevivir en un entorno siempre cambiante, sino también de cómo mantener nuestra relación, en constante evolución, con la vida silvestre. Hoy, los artistas contemporáneos
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art. Contemporary artists such as Penelope Gottlieb, Walton Ford, and John Buck reference, or even incorporate, the work of earlier artists, Audubon in particular, in their own works, which address colonialism, invasive species, and environmental policies. As these artists look back to discuss contemporary issues, a host of other artists, emerging and established, incorporate wildlife in ways that reflect their own diverse understandings of the space where humans and animals learn to coexist. What sets apart the artwork in Un/Natural Selections is the unexpected manner and variation with which each artist implements wildlife to tell a story,
recall history, make a statement, or create an aesthetically interesting piece. For example, Leslie Thornton’s video installation Binocular Menagerie (2014) plays on visual perception, transformation, and spirituality to question how we perceive reality. Artist James Prosek takes a naturalistic approach in his studies for large paintings, which feature bears, elk, and rhinos that he surrounds with silhouettes of plants and other animals of the same biome, each with a number that has no didactic key, thus leaving their scientific nomenclature a mystery. Based on discussions between herself and Harris, Hanawalt chose to group the 50-
some artworks in Un/Natural Selections into four sections: Tradition, Politics, Science, and Aesthetics. These categories drew from what Hanawalt saw as intent in the pieces. However, digging deeper, especially after having conversations with the artists, Hanawalt says she found that these categories are somewhat limiting. “My hope is that each artwork will be considered for its own value, or message, and in relationship to other objects in its section,” she says. “I think of these thematic areas as if they are chapters in a book, each overlapping the other to provide a comprehensive story about the reasons each artist implements wildlife in their work.”
La mayoría de las obras de arte incluidas en Selecciones (anti)naturales fueron adquiridas para el Museo por medio de su grupo de miembros Círculo de Coleccionistas, así como del evento anual Gala Blacktail. “Fue la colaboración entre el Museo y sus patrocinadores la que seleccionó estas obras de arte para formar parte de su colección permanente,” afirma la curadora de arte Tammi Hanawalt. “Contamos con estas obras gracias a la comunidad.”
incluyen animales salvajes en sus obras para abordar una serie de cuestiones apremiantes y ampliar las nociones sobre el arte de la vida silvestre. En sus obras, los artistas contemporáneos, como Penelope Gottlieb, Walton Ford y John Buck hacen referencia, o incluso incorporan, la obra de artistas anteriores, en especial la de Audubon, para abordar temas como el colonialismo, las especies invasoras y las políticas medioambientales. Mientras estos artistas se remontan al pasado para abordar problemáticas contemporáneas, otros tantos artistas, ya sea establecidos como emergentes, incorporan la vida silvestre a sus obras en formas que reflejan sus distintas maneras de entender el espacio en el que los humanos y los animales aprenden a coexistir.
vida silvestre para contar una historia, recordar la historia, hacer una declaración o crear una pieza interesante desde el punto de vista estético. Por ejemplo, la videoinstalación Colección de animales (Binoculares) de Leslie Thornton (2014) juega con la percepción visual, la transformación y la espiritualidad para cuestionar la manera en la que percibimos la realidad. James Prosek adopta un enfoque naturalista en los estudios que realiza para sus grandes pinturas, que incluyen osos, ciervos canadienses y rinocerontes que el artista rodea con siluetas de plantas y otros animales del mismo bioma, cada uno de los cuales tiene un número sin leyenda didáctica, dejando así su nomenclatura científica envuelta en misterio.
Lo que diferencia a las obras de arte incluidas en Selecciones (anti)naturales es la forma inesperada y la variación con la que cada artista hace uso de la
Sobre la base de los debates que se dieron entre ella y Harris, Hanawalt eligió agrupar las aproximadamente 50 obras de Selecciones (anti)naturales en cuatro
secciones: Tradición, Política, Ciencia y Estética. Estas categorías se desprenden de lo que Hanawalt entendió como la intención de las piezas. Sin embargo, al profundizar más, en especial tras conversar con los artistas, Hanawalt afirma que estas categorías le resultan ahora un tanto limitantes. “Espero que se considere cada obra de arte por su propio valor, o mensaje, y en relación con otros objetos presentes en la misma sección,” comenta. “Entiendo estas áreas temáticas como capítulos de un libro, todos ellos superpuestos para proporcionar una historia exhaustiva sobre los motivos por los que cada artista hace uso de la vida silvestre en su obra.” Fragmento del catálogo de Selecciones (anti)naturales: La vida silvestre en el arte contemporáneo, escrito por la Dra. Tammi Hanawalt, curadora de arte del NMWA. Todos los paneles explicativos en Un/Natural Selections están tanto en Inglés como en Español.
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Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art
Tradition:
Transmission of Cultural Studies and Histories across Generations
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orks in this section include Barbara Kassel’s Wet Weather, Preston Singletary’s White Raven, and William Morris’s Animal Pins. “I’m interested in how cultural stories, as well as artistic methods, are transmitted from one generation to the next,” Hanawalt says. In 1988, Preston Singletary, desiring to find his own voice within his medium, began experimenting with the application of Tlingit designs in his glass artworks. Although the designs were tied to his ancestry, Singletary, who had been creating glassworks for years, did not feel as confident about his Native references. By the mid-1990s, he came to a crossroads in his career, which at the time was precariously balanced between glass blowing and music. Feeling the need to choose a direction, he spent some time in Haines, Alaska, befriending local Tlingit artists, with whom he collaborated. Around 1997 he exhibited more than a dozen of his Tlingit-inspired glassworks at the Traver Gallery in Seattle. From that show’s success, Singletary sought out teachers, mentors, and elders who might educate him in Tlingit design, mythologies, stories, and the protocols involved with what he could visually represent in his art. White Raven is one among several ravens Singletary created in the Tlingit style that is prototypical of the artist’s work. The designs on the sculpture, referred to as “formline,” center on the use of ovoid and U-shaped elements that work together as a continuous network of lines and abstractions representing people, animals, and supernatural beings. “There is an architecture that I needed to learn before I could successfully execute the designs,” Singletary says. Then there is the creation of the sculpture itself. First the glass is blown and shaped, and then color is applied by adhering colored glass powder onto the hot-formed surface. Once the color has cooled, Singletary applies rubber tape, on which he draws the design. Sections of the tape are then cut away to expose portions of colored glass that is sandblasted to colorless glass, which reveals another layer of color. Singletary feels that the piece fits in well at a wildlife museum because it acknowledges a cultural story that provides another perspective on human beings’ relationship with the natural world. – Preston Singletary (Tlingit, United States, b. 1963), White Raven, 2018. Blown and sand carved glass. 19 1/4 x 9 x 14 inches. Gift of the 2019 Collectors Circle, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Preston Singletary. M2019.020
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Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art
Politics:
Colonization, Oppression, and Activism – Gillie and Marc. Gillie Schattner (Australia, b. England, 1965) and Marc Schattner (Australia, b. 1961), The Last Three Stood Proud and Tall, 2018. Bronze. 79 x 79 x 37 inches. Gift of the 2018 Collectors Circle, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Gillie and Marc. M2018.054
“A
rt is important to politics, and wildlife is important to art,” says Hanawalt. “But, I’ve had students tell me that they didn’t know that art was political.” The works of the six artists included in this section are of species ranging from penguins to northern white rhinos. William Sweetlove’s Cloned Penguin with PET Bottle consists of six penguins in bold yellow, silver, red, pink, green, and blue. Penguins are social creatures that face a dire future in the wake of climate change and sea-level rise, making them perfect animals to convey the artist’s ecological concerns. “As an artist, I try to find solutions,” Sweetlove says. “Darwin taught us that living creatures can only
This work was first realized as the largest rhinoceros sculpture in the world—a massive, 17-foot-tall installation first displayed in Brooklyn’s Astor Place that later found a permanent home at the San Antonio Zoo. Another slightly smaller version is installed outside of New York City’s Peloton Building. The Museum’s rendition, at just over six feet, is currently the only cast of its size. The sculpture’s installations were used to motivate people to sign petitions in an attempt to pressure the governments of China and Vietnam to abolish rhino-horn trafficking. survive if they adapt to their changing environment. But with changes happening so quickly now, animals don’t have time to evolve and are going extinct. This is why I’m cloning them on a smaller scale.” The Last Three Stood Proud and Tall by Gillie and Marc Schattner is a moving visual eulogy for the last remaining northern white rhinos in existence. At the time Gillie and Marc created the sculpture, there were three northern white rhinos still alive: Sudan, Fatu, and Najin. Sudan, the sole male, died on March 19, 2018. Fatu and Najin live in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya and are protected round-the-clock by armed guards.
The Last Three is not just a powerful memorial, but also a catalyst for action. It is aligned with multiple initiatives aimed at spreading awareness, fueling donations, and working with authoritative bodies to affect real change against poaching. “We hope that when people see this sculpture and learn more about what has happened to these animals, they can reflect on humanity’s treatment of the earth and reflect on their own part in that,” say the Schattners. “We hope that people will see this story of a species pushed to the edge and strive to stop this from happening to any species, creating a new generation of wildlife protectors.”
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Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art
Invading Audubon
Penelope Gottlieb’s canvases are John James Audubon prints.
“Passiflora vitifolia is almost hard to take
in; there are several Audubon prints that are bloody, but this one is particularly violent,” says artist Penelope Gottlieb about one of her four works in the Museum’s permanent collection and Un/Natural Selections. “Sometimes I think an image has to be confrontational to get the point across. Especially when the subject of the work is endangered and extinct species.” What is the point Gottlieb is trying to get across? “We’re in the sixth period of extinction; animal, plants, and, yes, humans are all vulnerable. We’re in this together, and we need to value nature,” she says. To do this, Gottlieb “invades” existing print plates from John James Audubon’s Birds of America by painting nonnative, invasive plant species into the prints. “I present a revisionist vision of nature in its current state of compromise and literal bondage. Invasive species are one of the top three reasons for plant extinction.” The other two are loss of habitat and the effects of global warming.
– Penelope Gottlieb (United States, b. 1952), Passiflora Vitifolia, 2011. Acrylic and ink over reproduction Audubon print. 44 3/8 x 32 1/8 inches. Gift of the 2012 Collectors Circle, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Penelope Gottlieb. M2012.020
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Now based in Santa Barbara, Gottlieb first trained and worked as a commercial artist and had a successful and enjoyable career as a title designer for television and films and won an Emmy for title design for the series Generations. Then, she says, “I started looking for something to create that had more meaning.” Gottlieb enrolled in a Master of Fine Arts painting program at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Earning an MFA didn’t automatically give Gottlieb’s work meaning, though. “I didn’t just want to make pretty pictures about nature,” she says. “I wanted to find a way for my work to have a message, to say something that I felt passionate about.” That “something”—invading Audubon’s prints—didn’t come right away, but when it did, it felt right and she pursued it wholeheartedly. “It has been gratifying to me and has given my life more purpose,” Gottlieb says. It was the late 1990s, and Gottlieb heard a radio program about the rapidly growing number of disappearing plants and animals. “At first I
didn’t think this would become my life’s work; I was just very curious,” she says. She reached out to botanists and learned the planet was in its sixth period of mass extinction. The rate of extinction of species was 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates. “It didn’t have a name yet,” Gottlieb says. “Now we know this present unit of geologic time as the Anthropocene Epoch, the first extinction period that is the result of human activity.” The more research Gottlieb did, the more interested she became in plants. “Endangered animals, especially attractive ones like pandas or polar bears, got news coverage, but no one was talking about the fact that 50 percent of all plant species will become extinct in the 21st century,” she says. “Many plants were never visually recorded before their extinction.” In her studio, Gottlieb had three Audubon prints she had bought at a thrift shop. “The prints were not of good quality. I bought them for their frames, but looking at them, I was inspired,” she says. “When Audubon painted his taxidermied birds, he had no insight into what we are facing today. The word ‘extinction’ didn’t even exist in his day. There was such an incredible contrast between his world and my contemporary concerns. I began to imagine invading his prints with invasive plant species, turning nature onto itself. It would be a creative challenge to have a dialog between the past and the present, a kind of duet between his work and mine.” Gottlieb matches the style of her invasions to that of Audubon. “I want to blur the line between the layers, but not in an obvious way,” she says. “I have added elements—species, signs, and symbols, mimicking Audubon’s original etchings, making it difficult sometimes for the viewer to decipher the boundaries between the two projects. This invites a second reading of surprise and complex emotional response.” She sometimes paints the scientific name of the invasive plant over the original caption on the print. Gottlieb says, “I literally overwrite the existing history as presented by Audubon.”
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Sometimes I think an image has to be confrontational to get the point across. Especially when the subject of the work is endangered and extinct species.” —PENELOPE GOTTLIEB
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Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art
Science:
Species Survival in the Anthropocene – George Boorujy (United States, b. 1973), California, 2014. Ink and watercolor on paper. 72 x 134 inches. Gift of the 2015 Collectors Circle with additional assistance provided by generous Museum Patrons, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © George Boorujy. M2015.120
The Anthropocene is the term given to our current geologic age, wherein human activity has the strongest influence in shaping Earth’s climate and ecosystems. “Science and politics definitely overlap,” Hanawalt says. George Boorujy’s California features a California condor, a species that almost went extinct. Being of the same family as vultures, condors are not typically what we think of as “beautiful.” In fact, as Boorujy explains, little attention was given to the disappearance of condors in the 20th century, and in 1987 they were deemed extinct in the wild. These carrion eaters, however, are quite valuable to humanity. In their role as
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nature’s undertakers, they consume diseased flesh and help to clean and balance ecosystems, so beginning in the 1970s they were taken into captivity in order to breed and be released. Although humans allowed them to survive, California condors are still a rare species. “I wanted to present the condor as an icon, in the vein of a totemic Egyptian power,” Boorujy says. “Birds of this ilk are recognized in many cultures as intermediaries between life and death, and I wanted to give it that consideration, which is part of the reason why I am so meticulous and create in such a large scale. I want to honor
the subject, but at the same time, I want to show the way things actually are.” Artist Zoe Keller’s large-scale graphite drawings visually communicate ways in which human intervention threatens dynamic ecosystems. Keller immerses herself in research for her labor-intensive, thoughtfully rendered works, gathering information from field guides, natural history texts, as well as scientific journals and reports. Fire depicts animals and other organisms that share common threats to their existence. The flora and fauna depicted in Fire inhabit longleaf pine
ecosystems that depend on forest fires for survival. In the face of human intervention to suppress fires, they are now threatened or endangered. Keller illustrates fire dependence by centering a critically endangered Mississippi sandhill crane crouching on a bed of dead embers. The crane holds in its beak a burning branch from a Gowen cypress tree, while a black pine snake wraps upward around the crane’s neck and partly twines around another burning branch. The duality of fire as both nurturing and dangerous is demonstrated by the burning branch, carefully carried in the crane’s beak even as embers drop onto her back.
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Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art
Aesthetics:
Wildlife as Art and Entertainment
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n Troy Abbott’s work Jewel, a fluttering and hopping red canary beckons from its perch inside a metal vintage birdcage. Upon closer inspection, however, viewers come to the unsettling realization that this is a digital creature, its movements eternally repetitive within an LCD screen, the cage forever confining despite its open door. The color and vibrancy of the aptly named Jewel, and the use of commercially available ready-made bird cages and circuit boards, engage with the practices of the pop art movement, as does the repetitive loop of the image of the bird on-screen. A darker underlying theme in the work is the capitalist commodification of animals. Abbott became enamored with birds after taking a video camera into a pet shop where he was inspired to capture videos of them in cages. He says, “I didn’t want to get caught. I felt like I was stealing from the birds. Now, when I go into the pet shop, I don’t shoot videos of birds, I rescue them.” The work of KOLLABS, a partnership spanning more than two decades between Anke Schofield and Luis
Garcia-Nerey, both of whom enjoy independent fine art careers, facilitates connections with wild animals by bringing them into the human realm. Today, most people live in cities and rarely, if ever, encounter true wilderness. KOLLABS aims to flip this dynamic in their artwork by inviting wild creatures like elk, bears, and wolves to occupy urban and domestic settings that often include furniture, chandeliers, tables, or chairs. In Watson, the artists juxtapose wildlife with urban material culture. The artists say, “Animals in general, especially the ones we use, have a mysterious non-expression that is so interesting to us. As humans we know how others are feeling because of facial expressions, but it’s hard for us to know how animals feel. Their expressions are often so different. We know they have emotions and thoughts, but we can’t see that on the surface. That’s why we do these paintings. In a way, we are trying to understand what these animals are feeling by putting them in human situations. We are trying to make a bridge between us and them.”
The Tradition, Politics, Science, and Aesthetics text is excerpted from the Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art catalog authored by Curator of Art Tammi Hanawalt and Associate Curator of Art Lisa Simmons.
This exhibit is made possible by Art Bridges, Long Reimer Winegar, Maggie and Dick Scarlett Endowment (in honor of Joffa and Bill Kerr), Mays Family Foundation, Anne and Michael Moran, Thomas and Elizabeth Grainger Family Charitable Fund, and the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund.
– Troy Abbott (United States, b. 1967), Jewel, 2014. Vintage birdcage, circuit board, and video screen. 17 x 12 x 7 1/2 inches. Gift of 2016 Blacktail Gala, with additional funds provided by Friends of the National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Troy Abbott. M2016.007
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Valued Species: Animals in the Art of Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei JUNE 5–OCTOBER 3, 2021
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lthough decades and countries separate them, artists Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei have similarities. “There are a lot of connections between these two,” says the Museum’s Curator of Art, Tammi Hanawalt. “They both address consumerism and consumption, and, in this exhibit, we show how they addressed animals.” This exhibition features Warhol’s complete Endangered Species portfolio, which is part of the Museum’s permanent collection, alongside Ai’s 12 Zodiac Heads. In 2015, the Museum exhibited Ai’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads on its Sculpture Trail. These were cast from bronze. The zodiac animal heads in Valued Species are completely different—each is made from thousands of Lego bricks. Ai’s use of a commercial product and the saturated colors in both artists’ works show the influence of Pop Art—the style of art for which Warhol is known. – Ai Weiwei, Zodiac (Tiger), 2018. Image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. Ai Weiwei, Zodiac (Rooster), 2018. Image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio.
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The last time Warhol’s Endangered Species portfolio was on exhibit at the Museum was in 2017. In 2018, the Museum loaned the portfolio to the Ukrainian Museum in New York City for an exhibit. “Because of the nature of the artworks, they can’t be on display for extended periods,” Hanawalt says. “But whenever they’re out, they’re
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super popular. It is surprising to some people that we have artists whose work they have heard of—Georgia O’Keeffe, Rembrandt, Bugatti, or Maynard Dixon—but Andy Warhol’s artwork is so well known because of the sensationalism surrounding it. However, many people don’t know that he did this series on animals.” Warhol created his Endangered Species portfolio in 1983 after conversations about ecology with art dealers Ronald and Frayda Feldman. The Feldmans were longtime environmental and political activists, and Warhol had a lifelong interest in the natural world. Warhol treated these animal portraits like he did those of celebrities like Muhammad Ali, Grace Kelly, and Marilyn Monroe—presenting each species like a divine being in bold colors. “Presenting the animals the same way he did celebrities, Warhol is highlighting their importance,” Hanawalt says. Ai started working with Lego bricks as a medium in 2007. In 2014, his created a series of portraits of political prisoners and activists out of Legos for an exhibition at the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco. Later, when Ai was beginning work on an exhibit to be shown in Australia, the Lego Corporation refused to sell the artist a bulk order of bricks; the company said it wanted to stay away from projects that had a political agenda. Because he felt the corporation’s decision was linked to its business interests in China—of which Ai is a citizen and the government of which had earlier revoked his passport as part of a crackdown on political dissidents and activists—Ai went public with the company’s refusal of his order, calling it “an act of censorship and discrimination.” The controversy sparked public backlash and had supporters of Ai’s around the world donating plastic bricks for him to use. Lego reversed its policy several months later, and Ai went back to using Lego bricks in his work. The 12 animals of the Zodiac Heads continues both Ai’s Lego series and his Zodiac series.
The Zodiac series is based on sculptures of the Chinese zodiac commissioned from an Italian artist by an emperor for Yuanming Yuan, the summer palace in Beijing. When finished, they were displayed in Yuanming Yuan’s gardens. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, the gardens were destroyed and the sculptures were pilfered by Anglo-French soldiers. Some of the zodiac heads were eventually returned to China, but two of them, the rat and the rabbit, were at the center of a controversial 2009 Christie’s art auction. “The auction sparked debate about repatriation, cultural identity, and cultural property rights—topics Ai’s bronze Zodiac series embodies,” says Lisa Simmons, the Museum’s Associate Curator of Art. “Ai’s Lego Zodiac portraits build off of their bronze counterparts and, using these colorful accumulations of plastic bricks—children’s toys—add an interesting, playful layer to this exploration of how personal and cultural identity is constructed, brick by brick.” “Both of these artists are using animals as a way of saying something. Seeing them side-by-side first demonstrates the comparison between the two artists, how they work, and their impact on art,” Hanawalt says. “But beyond that, and maybe most importantly, this exhibit dives into questions about how humans place value on art and on animals. It makes me want to know more about and better understand the connections between humanity and the creatures that have shared our world throughout millennia. I hope this is what visitors feel.”
– Andy Warhol (United States, 1928–1987). Endangered Species: Pine Barrens Tree Frog, 1983. Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board. 38 x 38 inches. Gift of the 2006 Collectors Circle, an Anonymous Donor, and the Art Acquisitions Fund. National Museum of Wildlife Art, M2006.033.009 © 2021 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Courtesy Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY.
Eight of the 10 species included in Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species portfolio remain endangered. In 2007, the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list. The species is considered a conservation success story. In 1963, there were only an estimated 417 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. By 1997, thanks to protection from the Endangered Species Act, this number had increased to more than 5,000. By 2007, when bald eagles were delisted, there were almost 70,000 in the lower 48 states. The Pine Barrens tree frog was removed from the endangered species list not long after Warhol created the portfolio; additional populations of the species were found in Florida.
This exhibit is made possible by Mary Anne Cree, Lynne and Jack Fritz, Gallatin Wealth Management, Penny and Jeff Gilbert, Lachlan Hardie, Mary Jane Hunt and Bernard Little, Jackson Hole Traveler, Carol and James Linton, McCrea Foundation, Peggy Rose Schneider Endowment Fund, and Pat Wilson.
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National Geographic 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs NOVEMBER 16, 2021–APRIL 23, 2022
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Wildlife art is critical because it keeps people connected to – Photo by George Shiras
the idea of nature. People will not save what they don’t love.” —PHOTOGRAPHER JOEL SARTORE
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t was an easy decision to bring the traveling National Geographic exhibition 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs to the Museum. “Photography is not something the Museum collects, but we know it is something visitors like to see,” says Tammi Hanawalt, the Museum’s Curator of Art. “National Geographic 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs is the crème de la crème of wildlife photography.” The exhibition features images of wildlife from six continents taken by 24 photographers. Among the exhibition’s photographs are two of the first wildlife images ever published in National Geographic. The July 1906 issue of the magazine featured 74 photos taken by George Shiras, who pioneered the use of camera traps and flash photography. Today the magazine considers Shiras the “father of wildlife photography.” (His name might be familiar to wildlife biologists in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for another reason: He is credited with the discovery of a moose subspecies Alces alces shirasi, or Shiras’s Moose, in Yellowstone National Park.) Shiras came up with a method of photographing wildlife at night that mimics a nighttime hunting technique he learned from the Ojibwa tribe. The Ojibwa placed a fire in a pan at the front of a canoe while the hunter sat in the back. The light from the fire illuminated the animal while the hunter remained hidden in shadow. Shiras’s method substituted a kerosene lamp for the fire and a camera for the rifle. While Shiras’s images are important for their contribution to wildlife photography, most of the images in the exhibition are from contemporary wildlife photographers. Joel Sartore and Stephen Wilkes are two photographers who have previously had their work featured in temporary exhibitions at the Museum. Photo Ark was exhibited in 2017, and Day to Night: In the Field with Stephen Wilkes opened in 2019. Concurrent with Sartore’s exhibition, the Museum awarded him its highest honor, the Rungius Medal, which recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations across fields ranging from fine arts to natural sciences. Established in 1988, the Rungius medal has only been awarded 19 times. While Sartore is best known for founding the “Photo Ark,” a project through which he hopes to photograph the 12,000 species of animals in captivity, his two images in 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs are of wild animals—wolves in Minnesota and a brown bear on Alaska’s Katmai Peninsula.
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– Left: Photo by Paul Nicklen Right: Photo by Joel Sartore 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs is organized and traveled by the National Geographic Society.
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Dutch photographer Jasper Doest has an image of a Japanese macaque in the exhibition. Better known as snow monkeys, this species is native to Japan and lives farther north and in colder temperatures than any other non-human primate. The monkeys make snowballs for fun and bathe together in hot springs. Paul Nicklen, named the 2012 Wildlife Photographer of the Year by London’s Natural History Museum (this is the largest wildlifephotography contest in the world, often receiving more than 25,000 entries), has seven images in the exhibition, including one of two emperor penguins, the largest of
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The exhibitions that have come to us from National Geographic are always wonderfully done and well received by visitors.” — TAMMI HANAWALT, Curator of Art
the world’s 18 living species of penguins, at the frozen edge of the Ross Sea in Antarctica. One of the birds is safely on the ice, while the second flies through the air. Emperor penguins can jump up to two meters high out of the water, which they do to avoid leopard seals, one of their main predators. The son of a wildlife photographer, Mitsuaki Iwago was the first Japanese photographer whose work appeared on two National Geographic covers. His photograph in this exhibition—of a lion attacking a wildebeest—was taken in
Tanzania. Other photographers in the exhibition include Michael Nichols, Ami Vitali, Sergey Gorshkov, Thomas P. Peschak, Beverly Joubert, and Charlie Hamilton James, among others. James’s photograph is the only one in the exhibition that features the wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Taken in Grand Teton National Park, James’s image is of a male grizzly chasing ravens from a bison carcass. “The exhibitions that have come to us from National Geographic are always wonderfully done and well received by visitors,” Hanawalt says. “I believe that there are some
really spectacular photographs in the 50 Greatest Wildlife Photographs that serve to complement the wildlife art we have exhibited from our permanent collection. Through these photographs, visitors will see views of wildlife they might never be able to see in nature, and they will also be offered some insight as to the progression of wildlife photography, as well as how perspectives about wildlife have changed over decades.” This exhibit is made possible by Dorothy Bahna and the Howell A. & Ann M. Breedlove Charitable Foundation.
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While They’re Sleeping: A Story of Bears OCTOBER 30, 2021–APRIL 23, 2022
This exhibit is made possible by Jan and Bob Benz, Marnie Peterson-Coin and Tasso Coin, Halloran Farkas + Kittila LLP, J. Singleton Financial, Kent Nelson, and In Memory of Elizabeth McCabe.
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“B
ears stand on two legs, are omnivores, have five toes on each foot, are fiercely maternal, and are at the top of the food chain,” says Associate Curator of Art Lisa Simmons, who is a former Grand Teton National Park interpretive ranger. “They have this amazing parallel with humanity, and, as wildlife art has evolved over time, it has come to capture this.” Simmons and Curator of Art Tammi Hanawalt, have created an exhibition featuring works depicting bears from the Museum’s permanent collection and photographs on loan to the Museum from photographer and conservationist Thomas D. Mangelsen. (Read more about Mangelsen’s photographs in the sidebar “Meet Grizzly 399.”) The idea for While They’re Sleeping came from longtime Museum Board Member Jan Benz. The winter before Covid-19, Benz was on the campus of her alma mater, University of Kansas, for a meeting of a women’s philanthropic group. At the end of the meeting, two women who knew that Benz and her husband spent significant time in Jackson Hole approached her. “They wanted to know what I knew about grizzly 399 and if I had ever seen her; they followed 399 on social media,” Benz says. A resident of Grand Teton National Park, grizzly 399 had become famous thanks to her preference for raising her cubs near park roads. At the time Benz was asked what she knew about the bear, 399 had had five litters (three sets of triplets, a set of twins, and a single cub) and was 24-years-old, considered extreme old age for a species whose average lifespan in the wild is between 20 and 25 years. Grizzly 399 had Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts (although it’s unknown who runs these). Benz says, “I knew 399 from living in Jackson, but I didn’t
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The title While They’re Sleeping came from Tiffany Bajor, Executive Assistant to Museum Director
artists like Carl Rungius started to focus on the native ecosystem in their work. “You can identify actual landforms and plants, and the animal is not featured in a static pose; instead it is actively engaged in one of its natural behaviors, like splashing around in a creek trying to catch a salmon,” Simmons says.
expect people in Kansas to know about her. It really surprised me, and it wasn’t long after that that it clicked: the Museum should do an exhibit on bears.” The Museum has no artworks specifically of 399 in its permanent collection, but it does have plenty of bears. “There is an abundance of works featuring black, grizzly, and polar bears, all species native to North America,” Simmons says. While They’re Sleeping will focus heavily on contemporary art, but included are a handful of historic works. “These provide context for the development of the use of this species in art,” Simmons says. “How these animals, and animals in general, have been portrayed over time has changed.” Works from the mid-to-late 19th century, like the prints of John Woodhouse Audubon, depict bears in a scientific light, as a way to catalogue species. “They are a documentation of the physical characteristics of bears and, at the time, offered a vision of New World diversity. The prints are absolutely impressive works of art, but the animal’s form is static, without much dimension and the habitat is vague,” Simmons says. Over time though,
From capturing the physical essence of bears, artists moved to “trying to convey an emotion,” Simmons says. “Contemporary British artist Nicola Hicks’s painted and sculpted bears are inspired by poetry, the magical star constellation Ursa Major, and rescued bears that can no longer exist in the wild.” Simmons also cites the work of contemporary artist Robert McCauley. “He talks about and paints bears as humanlike, he says that bears have human eyes. This is very different from Audubon’s ursine depictions. Contemporary artists like McCauley and Hicks have moved to highlighting the parallels between us and bears. They are intelligent creatures that display a range of complex emotions, just like us.” – Left Top: Ken Carlson (United States, b. 1973), Polar Bear, n.d. Oil on board. 28 x 44 inches. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Ken Carlson. Left Bottom: Brad Rude (United States, b. 1964), Collective Journey, 2016. Bronze 16 x 20 x 10 inches. 2016 Western Visions Trustees Purchase Award, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Brad Rude.
TOM MANGELSEN | WWW.MANGELSEN.COM
Steve Seamons. It plays on the fact the exhibition hangs during the time of year bears are in hibernation.
Meet Grizzly 399 In addition to 40-some artworks from the Museum’s permanent collection, While They’re Sleeping also includes a photography tribute to grizzly 399, who, after emerging from her den in May 2020 with quadruplets, a rare occurrence for a grizzly bear of any age and unheard of for a then-24-year old, solidified herself as the world’s most famous mother bear. “We worked with Tom [Mangelsen, a global conservationist and photographer based in the valley] and his assistant Sue Cedarholm to select seven images of his that feature 399,” Simmons says. “He knows her intimately and has followed her life in the wild for years and kindly lent us the images for this tribute. We are very grateful.” These photographs show the different parts of 399’s life—a mother, a hunter, a curious animal—and her life in different seasons. “Millions of visitors come to Grand Teton National Park every year, and more and more of them now are hoping to see 399. She is many people’s first true encounter with wilderness,” Simmons says. “This exhibit is a chance for visitors to connect with bears during their long hibernation and to ponder why these creatures hold the human imagination so tightly.”
Above: Robert MCauley (United States, b. 1946), The Only West Left is in Your Head, 2014. Oil on canvas on panel. 24 x 36 inches. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Robert MCauley.
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Woven Together: Art & Arachnids JUNE 26–OCTOBER 16, 2021 “There isn’t as wide of a gap between art and science as one might think,” says
Sari Ann Platt, the Museum’s Associate Curator of Education and Outreach. One of the goals of Woven Together: Art & Arachnids is to show this. The multipart, multimedia exhibit inspired by an episode of the Museum’s Bisoncast video series (read more about Bisoncast on Pg. 12) also shows how the Jackson Hole community and the Museum are woven together. One portion of the exhibit highlights work by about 300 local students. A second part of the exhibit includes science-informed works by artists from Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana selected by a jury that includes members of the Museum’s education and curatorial staff, volunteers, and community members. –
Bisoncast: Beyond Beauty Getting up close and personal with a local jumping spider (Habronattus altanus).
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the Teton Literacy Center, Girls Actively Participating, and the Jackson Hole Children’s Museum, among other partners; an exhibit of juried works by regional artists; and, finally, the “Beyond Beauty” Bisoncast episode playing on a projector within the exhibit. Artists from Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana were invited to submit work for the juried component. Aside from size limitations, the works were to be arachnid themed, and the Museum’s Education Department was most interested in works informed by science. “This could be anything from the artist talking to a scientist to better understand their subject matter to using an artwork to bring awareness to certain conservation issues by portraying a species that may need our help,” Platt says. “Even something as simple as participating in citizen science by going for a walk and creating an artwork based on something they observed.” Maggie Raboin, the ecologist featured in “Beyond Beauty,” first saw the spider she later determined was a new species while she was in the field doing research for a different project. “We’re interested in seeing how different artists define science for themselves and how it impacts their work,” Platt says.
Platt joined the Museum’s Education Department as it was working on the Bisoncast episode “Beyond Beauty,” which is about spiders. “It was such an interesting and exciting project that I wanted to create an exhibit that celebrated the episode and also involved our community,” she says. “Togetherness is an important theme of the exhibit because, without the community’s support, the Museum would not have been as successful as it was navigating the pandemic. We owe a big thanks to our local and nonlocal supporters alike.”
This juried component of Woven Together is a first for the Museum: It asked volunteers to play a role in the process. “Our Museum owes so much of its success to our volunteers,” Platt says. “It only made sense to ask for their help choosing artworks for this exhibit. They give so much to the Museum, and we wanted this exhibit to be a reflection of them as well.”
We’re interested in seeing how different artists define science for themselves and how it impacts their work.” — S ARI ANN PLATT, Associate Curator of Education and Outreach
The Mason Spider Mason spiders, a species discovered by ecologist Maggie Raboin while she was an undergraduate at the University of Montana, were first discovered right outside of Jackson Hole. The species, which Raboin named Castianeira teewinoticus and which is featured in Bisoncast’s “Beyond Beauty” episode, is unique among spiders because it builds a mound to protect its eggs. The moundbuilding process takes about seven hours. A female spider first spins a bed of silk. Upon it she deposits about 10 eggs. These are sealed beneath another layer of silk, and then the spider begins building a mound—piling seeds, leaves, flower petals, and other materials over the eggs and silk. Raboin, now a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, is currently studying the purpose of the mounds.
This exhibit is made possible by the Estate of Bertram C. Raynes.
– Top: Rendering of Wapiti Gallery
Woven Together has three components: spider art and sculptures created by students at C-V, Jackson Hole high schools, and Colter Elementary School, the National Arts Honors Society, and from kids in kindergarten through 12th grade involved in programs at
Bottom: Rachel E. Smith (United States, b.1981), Goldenrod Crab Spider/Wild Rose, 2021. Oil on aluminum panel. Photo Courtesy of Rachel E. Smith. © Rachel E. Smith Right: Bisoncast: Beyond Beauty
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NEW ACQUISITIONS
Borealis, RAVEN SKYRIVER My work is almost exclusively derived from the marine ecosystem. I attempt to place the creatures back in their environment by capturing the fluid nature in molten glass and transferring it into the perceived weightlessness of a swimming creature. I always strive to imbue the world with a hint of life.” —RAVEN SKYRIVER
The first piece purchased at the 2020 Blacktail Gala, the last acquisition event before the pandemic, was a first for the Museum. “Until Borealis, we did not have a walrus in the permanent collection,” says Curator of Art Dr. Tammi Hanawalt. It was not just to get a walrus into the collection that Hanawalt presented the piece, which is made from glass, to the Blacktail Gala crowd for possible purchase, though. “Borealis is a perfect name for this piece; there are so many colors in it when you catch it in the right light. It is beautiful,” she says. When the Museum’s Curatorial Department begins to assemble artworks to present to attendees at the Blacktail Gala, Hanawalt says, “We’re looking for pieces that have a unique approach to wildlife and that are made out of materials that are not necessarily the familiar bronze and oil paint.” Hanawalt found Skyriver’s work on the website of Seattle’s Stonington Gallery. “Borealis struck me the most because of the personality the artist gave that little walrus. The face is so sweet, and you can’t help but relate to the anthropomorphic qualities of the walrus. Just look at its soulful eyes. Everyone at Blacktail immediately took to it. It was the first piece chosen,” she says. Raven Skyriver’s inspiration is drawn from nature, and he challenges himself through the use of realism. Trying to make a glass sculpture look like a living and breathing walrus, as in Borealis, is a complex puzzle that Skyriver, who was born and raised in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, works through as he creates each of his glass sculptures. Skyriver started working with glass while in high school and, after graduation, went to Venice, Italy, to study with Davide Salvadore so that he might better understand Venetian glass.
– Raven Skyriver (Tlingit, b. 1982), Borealis, 2018. Blown, off-hand sculpted and sandblasted glass. 10 x 14 x 9 inches. Gift of the 2020 Blacktail Gala, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Raven Skyriver. Photo Courtesy of Stonington Gallery.
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Skyriver looks at his sculptures as a way to instill messages of conservation. He says: “The marine creatures I create lend themselves to the fluidity of glass and its reflective nature. Using these native animals, I hope to evoke the excitement of the salmon running or the miracle of a whale migrating 5,000 miles. I also want to draw into question the balance of nature. How does the presence of these creatures affect us? What does the future hold for these animals?”
NEW ACQUISITIONS
– He Xi (China, b. 1960), Chasing Fish, 2019. Ink and Chinese pigments on silk. 15 x 14 inches. Gift of the 2020 Blacktail Gala, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © He Xi
Chasing Fish, HE XI “This work is so beautifully done,” Hanawalt says of Chasing Fish, the first work by Chinese artist He Xi in the Museum’s permanent collection. “The method with which He depicts his finely detailed figures is informed by the traditions of Chinese scroll painting, but his work is distinctly and uniquely his own. He addresses the themes of freedom, containment, and the relationship between humans and the natural world, and his narratives are sometimes humorous and sometimes more obscure.” In Chasing Fish there’s humor. The tiny fish in the painting appears oblivious that a kingfisher is about to eat it. “The painting shows the moment a kingfisher
has broken the surface of the water with its beak pointed downward, directly at the fish. The expression of the fish appears as unawareness,” Hanawalt says. An interesting aspect of this painting is that He Xi, who lives and works in Shanghai, has painted the bird in an underwater scene, of which we’re made aware by the semitranslucent blue-gray splash of color against a stark white background, and, of course, by the fish that swims in the foreground. “Being underwater is a unique perspective,” Hanawalt says. The painting is also unique in the Museum’s permanent collection for its style. “This is not a scroll painting, but you can see the influence of scroll paintings
in it. We don’t have any scroll paintings in the collection,” Hanawalt says. “The works in our collection started out being completely from North American artists, or from European artists painting North American wildlife, and we’ve gradually been expanding to be more inclusive with wildlife as well as with artists. Finding this piece by a celebrated artist who lives and paints in China adds another element to our collection, and a level of prestige. I hope that a more diverse collection shows differences in the perceptions of wildlife around the world.” Chasing Fish was added to the Museum’s permanent collection thanks to the 2020 Blacktail Gala.
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SPECIAL EVENTS
Western Visions® Show & Sale Through Western Visions, we speak to both the legacy and the future of wildlife art.”
— SUE SIMPSON GALLAGHER Western Visions Chair and Museum Trustee
5–8 P.M. THURSDAY, SEPT. 16
“To my knowledge, this year’s group of Western Visions artists is the most diverse ever,” says Michelle Dickson, the Museum’s Programs & Events Director. “And it has the highest number of new participants that it’s ever had.” Also of note this year is that the size of paintings and sculptures will be smaller. “This harkens back to the beginnings of Western Visions, when it was a true miniature show,” Dickson says. Paintings can be no larger than 16 inches by 20 inches and sculptures no longer than 18 inches in any one dimension. “Our hope is that this will allow established collectors and also beginning collectors to acquire works by favorite artists,” Dickson says. More good news for collectors is that this year’s Western Visions has about 150 participating artists, making it one of the largest ever. Entry into Western Visions, the Museum’s largest annual fundraiser, is highly competitive for artists. In 2019, only one new artist was juried into the show. Last year there were four new artists. This year there are 11. “It’s wonderful to have
so many new artists,” Dickson says. (See the sidebar for the list of the new Western Visions artists.) Some of the recent additions applied to the show on their own; others were reached out to because of recommendations from the Museum’s curatorial department or from other Western Visions artists. One of the new artists, Terrance Guardipee, was introduced to Museum supporters at the 2020 Blacktail Gala. Attendees at that event, the purpose of which is to acquire new contemporary works for the Museum’s permanent collection, voted to commission Guardipee, a Blackfeet painter and ledger artist, to create an original work. Trained at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Guardipee grew up on Blackfeet lands in Montana. He credits his time at IAIA with helping him bring a contemporary color palette to his work in a manner that is consistent with his Blackfeet culture. Guardipee was one of the first Native artists to revive the historical tradition of
Artists participating in Western Visions for the first time Missy Acker Jim Bortz Nicholas Coleman Terrance Guardipee Dan Knepper Bruce Lawes Connor S. Liljestrom Ben Matthews Paul Rhymer Suzie Seerey-Lester Nate Udd
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MEET TWO WESTERN VISIONS ARTISTS Last year was painter Carrie Wild’s first Western Visions. “When I received the acceptance letter, I teared up and called my mom,” she says. “Being a part of a show at the National Museum of Wildlife Art is a big deal.” This year the Jackson-based artist and gallery owner (she owns Gallery Wild with her husband, Jason Williams) plans to do a painting that is as bold and colorful as the one she did last year. “It will definitely be something that has a pop and stands out,” she says. Recently Wild has been working with structure and graphic forms. “I’ve enjoyed exploring that, even with simple lines, subjects can be easily identified. By focusing on posture, the individual animal can seem to have its own personality as well as a relationship or a conversation with the subjects around it.” @carriewildfineart
SPECIAL EVENTS
ledger art, so named because the drawings and paintings were done on pages of old ledger or account books. Guardipee transforms and updates the style by using antique maps, war rations, or checks (dating from the mid-19th century) instead of pages from books. “Through Western Visions, we speak to both the legacy and the future of wildlife art,” says Western Visions Chair and Museum Trustee Sue Simpson Gallagher. “Terrance Guardipee adds a freshness to this genre by using wildlife as symbols within art steeped in Native tradition.” Guardipee’s work also hangs in the office of United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, at the Smithsonian Institute, and at the Gene Autry Museum.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SANDY SCOTT
Canadian artist Missy Acker is new to Western Visions but not to major shows and exhibitions. Her work has been selected for inclusion in the highly competitive Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum’s Birds in Art Exhibition. “My current body of work is focused on the interplay of light and shadow
over the feathers and knobby skin of birds at opposite ends of the aesthetic range,” says her artist’s statement. “Missy Acker brings a deep love and appreciation of the individual distinctiveness of birds to her work,” Simpson Gallagher says. “She gracefully depicts even the homeliest of birds with the most beautiful of gestures and makes the viewer feel as though these creatures are truly our fine feathered friends.” Sculptor Paul Rhymer worked at the Smithsonian Institution for 26 years doing taxidermy and model making. This threedimensional work inspired his personal artwork to gradually move from painting and drawing into sculpture. Participating in Western Visions for the first time, “Paul Rhymer sculpts in the tradition of the animalier who truly understands the anatomy and form of his subjects from a taxidermist perspective,” Simpson Gallagher says. “He has taken that knowledge and applied a sense of wonder and respect to his work.” Rhymer’s sculptures have been exhibited at shows at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum, the National Sculpture
Society, and the Society of Animal Artists, and are in collections around the world, including at the National Zoo, the National Museum of Natural History, and Germany’s Hiram Blauvelt Museum. While the sale part of Western Visions is a single night, September 16, works hang at the Museum from September 10 through October 2. The primary sale will allow for in-person and online purchases; pieces not sold September 16 are available to purchase through the end of the show. For details, tickets, and the full line-up of artists, go to wildlifeart.org/western-visions/ This event is sponsored by Richard Adkerson, Jan and Bob Benz, Big Sky Brewing, The Bomb Sommelier, Lisa Carlin, Creative Curiosities, Gallatin Wealth Management, GraVoc, Jackson Hole Insurance, Carol and Jim Linton, Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, Maggie and Dick Scarlett, Schmidt Custom Framing, Katherine and Jack Shook, Simpson Gallagher Gallery, Marcia and Mike Taylor/Bennett Family of Companies, and Willow Street Group
Sculptor Sandy Scott, based in Lander, Wyoming, has participated in Western Visions since its inception 34 years ago. She always tries to introduce a new piece. This year it was a challenge for Scott to select a work for Western Visions because, with her travels and gallery shows curtailed by the pandemic, “I’ve gotten so much work done,” she says. “I had a few pieces started, but most were conceived during Covid. A few of the subjects such as camels, iguanas, elephants, and, even a nude, I would not have created for my galleries and museum shows. My studio time during the pandemic was very personal.” Whatever piece she ends up choosing, it won’t be a moose. “I love doing moose, but I want to put in something different this year,” she says. sandyscott.com
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ONGOING EVENTS
Yoga on the Trail The valley’s best yoga classes are on the Museum’s Sculpture Trail, and they’re free. Here, from 10 to 11 a.m. every Thursday between July 1 and August 26, instructors from Jackson Hole yoga studios lead free classes overlooking the expanse of the National Elk Refuge and surrounded by works of art by Simon Gudgeon, Richard Loffler, Ken Bunn, and Herb Alpert. When you’re finished with yoga, take a stroll on the trail, or relax on one of its Douglas fir benches. The Sculpture Trail yoga classes are free, but B.Y.O.M. (bring your own mat).
First Sundays Fables, Feathers & Fur: Storytelling and Art-Making After a forced break because of the pandemic, Fables, Feathers & Fur resumed in June 2021. This program, which happens every Friday throughout the summer, allows young visitors to engage with the Museum and its collection through storytelling and looking at and creating artwork. All art materials are provided at no charge. As of press time, it was not yet determined if preregistration would be required. Fables, Feather & Fur is meant for ages three to six, “but we don’t turn kids away if they fall outside of that range,” says the Museum’s Sugden Chief Curator of Education, Jane Lavino. Go to wildlifeart.org/events for the most current information. This program is made possible by Nancy and Dick Collister.
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First Sundays at the Museum mean free admission for Jackson Hole and Teton Valley locals. During the winter months, these Sundays include family-friendly programming and kid-approved activities connected to current exhibits. wildlifeart.org/events/locals This program is made possible by Bank of Jackson Hole and Lawrence Finch.
ONGOING EVENTS
Meet the New Greater Yellowstone Botanical Tour at the NMWA Sculpture Trail
Designed by Walter Hood, who is based in Oakland, California, and is a 2019 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the “Genius Grant,” the Museum's three-quarter-mile Sculpture Trail opened in 2012 and will eventually be home to more than 30 pieces of artwork. Realized in memory of Jim Petersen, the trail also hosts temporary exhibits, including, in 2015 and 2016, Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac Heads, 12 sculptures that represent the traditional Chinese zodiac animals that once adorned the garden of the Yuanming Yuan, an imperial retreat in Beijing. Although a lovely place for the community to enjoy art outside, the Sculpture Trail is now also a place for learning about native plant species. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the largest intact ecosystems on earth and home to more than 1,000 species of native plants. “These aren’t just interesting and beautiful, but foundational to the ecosystem that we hold so dear,” says Associate Curator of Art Lisa Simmons, who, in her former position at the Museum as the Associate Curator of Education and Outreach, spearheaded the development of the in-progress Greater Yellowstone Botanical Tour. This was done in partnership with Trevor Bloom, Steve Deutsch, and Josh St. John, the three co-founders of the nonprofit Teton Botanical Garden. In 2019, these co-founders approached the Museum with the idea of a native plant garden. Museum staff had been mulling over a similar idea for several years but didn’t have the expertise to execute it. The interest and assistance of Teton Botanical Garden and also a
lightning-caused wildfire in August 2019 on Museum grounds made the tour a priority. Much of the 90 acres that burned were covered with cheatgrass, a highly flammable, invasive species. “The fire was a real-life example of the harm that invasive species can cause in an ecosystem,” says Simmons, who, before working at the Museum, was an interpretive ranger in Grand Teton National Park. Last summer, volunteers from Teton Botanical Garden and the Museum planted native species including snowberry, wild rose, and shrubby cinquefoil; sowed wildflower seeds; and erected interpretive signs. The signs explain the importance of native plants in several of the different habitat types of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem seen along the Sculpture Trail—wildflower meadow, aspen grove, and sagebrush steppe. In the near future, a mobile tour of the Botanical Tour will be available for free, in both English and Spanish, via the National Museum of Wildlife Art app. “The mobile tour will guide visitors through more than 20 stops that outline the vital role native plants play in the health of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and their importance to the lifeways of Native peoples who have lived in this place for at least 11,000 years,” says Simmons. “The tour will also connect native plants to works of art from the Museum’s collection that feature the same species. We hope visitors will be inspired by these resilient and beautiful native plants and maybe even seek to plant native species in their own backyards.” The Botanical Tour should be finished this year.
This project is possible thanks to support and work from Teton Botanical Garden, The Nature Conservancy of Wyoming, and the Jackson Hole Land Trust, and because of generous grants from the Teton Conservation District and Smart Family Fund.
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BEYOND ART
The Museum Store
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Palate Even before the pandemic, Palate’s deck was one of the valley’s best outdoor dining spots. Overlooking the National Elk Refuge and offering a menu highlighting local and seasonal ingredients, the restaurant is a sister of locals’ favorite Gather, which serves dinner in a cozy, contemporary space in downtown Jackson. After a year of limited hours and periodic Covid-19-related closings, Palate returned to offering lunch daily from 11 a.m.– 3 p.m. on May 1. While its hours are back to normal, to help guests and staff feel comfortable, inside seating remains limited (50 percent capacity). The outside deck has seating for about 40 people. While Palate’s capacity has changed, the menu has not. Favorites include the Bison Gyro (fry bread filled with zucchini baba ganoush, yogurt feta, pickled onions, cucumber, and farm-raised bison) and Trout Fish and Chips (beer-battered Idaho rainbow trout, malted onions, tartar sauce, and lemon served with house-made potato chips). Or get a cheese board with selections from creameries in Utah and Idaho and a glass of wine or an Aperol spritz and soak up the views of the National Elk Refuge and Gros Ventre mountains. palatejh.com
CECILIA ROY
WE’RE THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART, BUT WE’RE NOT ONLY ART. WE’RE ALSO ONE OF THE BEST LUNCH SPOTS IN THE VALLEY AND A SOURCE OF UNIQUE, HANDMADE GIFTS THAT CELEBRATE WILDLIFE AND JACKSON HOLE.
Like the Museum itself, the Museum Store takes a broad view of wildlife art. “We work hard to look for items that relate to our mission of wildlife and nature and that are unique,” says Debbie Vassar, the Museum’s Director of Retail Operations. Sometimes items in the store correlate to a current exhibition—the store has the catalog for the Un/ Natural Selections exhibition, and this summer it will have Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei
items to go with the Valued Species exhibition that features work by each—but most items are more general. S. Howell Studio’s jewelry, handmade up the highway from the Museum in Moran, Wyoming, is inspired by the plants, wildlife, and landscape of the Tetons. “The intention of my jewelry is to draw attention to nature’s beauty,” says studio founder and designer Stephanie Howell. Ornaments hand-painted and stitched by local artist Lisa Holmes, who is also the Museum’s Chief Financial Officer, feature wildlife native to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, albeit not always as you’d see it in nature. “Lisa painted a pair of bears dressed as a bride and groom,” Vassar says. “They were so fun.”
We are grateful to these many generous donors who contributed a gift this past fiscal year—May 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021. Barbara & Bill Adams
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Final Word Bobbi Thomasma, who has been a volunteer docent at the Museum since retiring from teaching in 1994 and was one of the six Volunteers of the Year in 2020, says Tucker Smith’s painting The Refuge is her favorite piece in the permanent collection.
Tucker Smith is just a genius,” says Thomasma. “He is an amazing artist and a generous person. The Museum commissioned The Refuge from him in 1994, and, before it went out on tour, when I did tours, I met people in front of it. The painting is an old friend. It is interesting how he shows the close-up elk very carefully, but when you look at the elk in the distance, they’re just blobs of brown— but you still know exactly what they are.”
– Tucker Smith (American, b. 1940), The Refuge, 1994. Oil on canvas. 36 x 120 inches. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art. © Tucker Smith.
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CECILIA ROY
PLEASE JOIN US! There are many ways you can support the Museum. Membership is a key way to experiencing our exciting exhibitions, opening receptions, and thought-provoking lectures. As a member, you will enjoy discounts at our Museum Shop and restaurant! Consider a Gift of Membership for yourself, friends, and your family.
Photo by National Museum of Wildlife Art Stewart Steinhauer (Canada, b. 1952), Buffalo Mountain, 2015. Granite. 49 x 74 x 28 inches. Purchased with Funds Donated by Lynn and Foster Friess with additional assistance from the National Museum of Wildlife Art Acquisition Fund. © Stewart Steinhauer. Stewart Steinhauer (Canada, b. 1952), Little Buffalo Mountain, 2015. Granite. 25 x 36 x 14 inches. Purchased with Funds Donated by Lynn and Foster Friess with additional assistance from the National Museum of Wildlife Art Acquisition Fund. © Stewart Steinhauer.
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For our future and theirs
When you include the National Museum of Wildlife Art in your will, trust, or other estate plans, you are leaving a legacy that will provide the resources needed to support our mission far into the future. The uncertainty of 2020 highlighted just how vital the National Museum of Wildlife Art Legacy Society is as it allowed us to continue our work. We thank the many Members and Donors who are committed to a gift that supports the Museum’s future. To learn more about leaving a legacy gift to the Museum, please contact Eunice Nicholson, Manager of Membership and Planned Gifts, at 307/732-5414 or enicholson@wildlifeart.org, or visit wildlifeart. plannedgiving.org. If you have already included the Museum in your plans, please let us know so we can thank you and welcome you to the National Museum of Wildlife Art Legacy Society.