Permanent Collection

For 25 years, Berghold has roamed the back roads of our state capturing images of this vast country.

Wilber was a highly productive print­maker yet was always praised for her innovation and willingness to adapt and improve upon her work.

Jay Rummel was a legendary painter and printmaker who lived in Missoula almost all of his life. Born near Helena in 1939, Jay was influenced by most of the movements that have touched artists in Montana, including depression-era prints, Native American storytelling, pioneer storytelling, the paintings of C.M. Russell, the psychedelic poster art of the 1960’s, and, to a lesser degree, modern movements such as abstract expressionism. There are elements of nostalgia, folk art and psychedelia in almost all of Jay’s work.

Smith has been creating complex abstract paintings and prints since the 1970s. Combining appropriated imagery from commercial slogans and signage, art history and personal narratives, she forges an intimate visual language to convey her insistent socio-political commentary with astounding clout. Smith’s work carries tremendous weight and yet feels light and conversational—in large part due to this forged, personal lexicon of developed imagery.

Printmaker James Gilbert Todd was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Oct. 12, 1937. Growing up, his family divided their time between there and Seattle, Washington. Todd attended the College of Great Falls, Montana, from 1956-1959, and from 1959-1961, he attended both the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. Todd completed his B.A. at Great Falls in 1964, and continued his education at the University of Montana, receiving an MA degree in 1965, and a MFA degree in 1969. He also lived in Germany during the 1960s and worked as a newspaper illustrator and art instructor.

For me there is only one requirement for the visual arts, be it painting, sculpture, mixed media, printmaking, etc. All the parts need to be visually related.

Frances Senska believed in a utilitarian approach to art. Her cooperative teaching style endeared her to her students, many of whom went on to be influential artists in their own right.

Best known for her portraits of local Native Americans, Elizabeth’s work also includes rural and urban Montana landscape paintings, drawings and murals in a variety of media.

Cathy Weber is widely recognized for her lovingly rendered visions of commonplace objects. Weber’s work takes the form of paintings, book art, quilts, illuminated manuscripts, cartographic elements and domestic items. The result is visual poetry that addresses spirit, emotion, nature and politics. She feels an urgency to use her artistic process to respond to war, injustice, greed and violence. The act of transforming the ordinary into the beautiful gives her comfort, hope, and support for meeting life’s challenges.

Anne Appleby was born in 1954 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and moved to Montana at age 17. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1977 from the University of Montana and embarked on a 15-year apprenticeship with an Ojibwe elder, learning to patiently and deeply observe nature. Appleby would watch and then translate into color the cycles of leaves, stems, buds, fruit, and seeds, transforming nature’s fluid evolution into two-dimensional portraits.