Image of the Day, January 1, 2012

By Donna Poulton

An ice cream party, 1902. Credit: Photographing Montana 1894-1928, The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron In 1889, Evelyn Cameron left the gentrified home of her parents in England to follow her husband, Ewen, to the desolate prairieland of eastern Montana. When their initial venture of raising polo ponies in Montana failed, Evelyn turned to glass-plate photography to help support the family. Over the next 30 years she photographed life and work on the ranch and that of their neighbors. Her compelling views of domestic work, wildlife (especially coyotes, wolves and birds), and ranching came with the familiarity of having done much of the same work herself. 

"Evelyn kneading a panful of dough in her kitchen, August 1904. Anxious to give her nieces in England a glimpse of the day-to-day life she led in Montana, she made up an album of photographs including several portraits of herself at work." - Donna M. Lucey. Credit: Photographing Montana 1894-1928, The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron.At age twenty-five Cameron wrote in her diary…”I wish I could lead a life worthy to look back upon.” Fearless, self-assured and determined Cameron left a legacy of images that equals any work being done at that time and a personal history unrivaled by most western fiction.

"Evelyn on a petrified tree in the badlands displaying a copy of "The Bystander" magazine, which was conducting a contest for photographs of the magazine being read in the most unusual locations. She clambered out 'as far as I dared,' across the 72-foot-long natural bridge, hampered by her skirt, which kept snagging on the rock. The photograph was published in the British magazine." -- Donna M. Lucey. Credit: Photographing Montana 1894-1928, The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron.Equally compelling is the story of Donna M. Lucey who tenaciously researched the story of Evelyn Cameron. After following a rumor about a cache of pioneer photography, Lucey traveled to eastern Montana in 1979. There she found over 2000 glass-plate negatives and all of Evelyn’s journals and letters in the fervent care of Janet Williams who had inherited the ranch when Evelyn died in 1928. With Cameron’s life’s work intact, Lucey wrote Photographing Montana 1894-1928, The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron.

Credit: Photographing Montana 1894-1928, The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron.

Painting of the Day, November 20, 2011

By Donna Poulton

“I am still convinced that a literal naturalistic painting can still satisfy the passions of an intellectual mind.”  Clyde Aspevig

Montana artist, Clyde Aspevig was first introduced to painting when bedridden from a horse-riding accident.  He lists John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, and Winslow Homer as artist he studies and aspires to.  His large-scale work Winter Glow is a luminescent example of the simplicity, pattern and pulse he finds in nature.

Credit: © Clyde Aspevig

Clyde Aspevig, Winter Glow, c. 1910, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in.

Painting of the Day, November 17, 2011

By Donna Poulton

After being hired by the Saturday Evening Post, in 1919, to illustrate several articles with Western themes, William H. D. Koerner threw all of his interest and considerable talent into learning everything possible about the West.  He made numerous trips to Montana to study the details of ranch and mountain life and the mannerisms of the lively personalities that populated the region. Over eighteen hundred of his images were featured in the most popular magazines of the day and he illustrated for authors such as Zane Grey. Koerner’s Riding the Open Range, was featured in the Saturday Evening Post.

Credit: FineArt.ha.com

William Koerner (1878-1938), Riding the Range, oil on canvas 30 x 24 in.

Painting of the Day, November 12, 2011

By Donna Poutlon

Credit: Image courtesy of Josh Elliott

Josh Elliott, Midnight Passage, c. 2011, oil, 30 x 30 in.

Josh Elliot continues to offer discerning and fresh images of the West. He first came to our attention with his painting of a beaverslide in Hay Season, painted during haying in his home state of Montana. His painting of a desert nocturne Midnight Passage is rare because we see so few contemporary artists tackling the complex tonal values inherent in the difficult and cumbersome process of painting by moonlight.

The Top of the Continent – Through the Lens of Fred H. Kiser

By Bennett Owen

Fred H. Kiser. Credit: hockadaymuseum

He was one of the first entrepreneurs to use the phrase, “See America First,” and in the early years of the 20^th century, much of America got its impressions of the pioneer west from the cameras of Fred H. Kiser. As a keen businessman and consummate photographer, that suited him just fine.

Phantom Ship, Crater Lake, Oregon, by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: oldoregonhphots.com

What started out as a adolescent hobby quickly turned into a cottage industry as Kiser and his brother took advantage of the burgeoning penny postcard craze, snapping photographs of the Columbia River Gorge and selling them to guests at the family hotel just upriver from Portland. 

Hand-colored photograph of Crater Lake, Oregon. Credit: ebay

An avid mountaineer and adventurer, Kiser was soon leading massive teams and tons of equipment up tall peaks throughout the northwest to capture ever more daring and panoramic pictures for an eager public.

Crater Lake, Oregon by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: Public-republic.de

But it was his groundbreaking images of Crater Lake in southern Oregon that cemented Kiser’s reputation as a preeminent nature photographer…that along with an innovation he described as the “Artograph,” a way of mass-producing hand colored images that could then be used for anything from postcards to leather covered coffee table albums.

Sunrise from Victor Rock by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: The Oregon State University Archives

Kisers’s talents caught the eye of the Great Northern Railway, which employed him to capture the stunning mountain vistas of northwestern Montana. In terms of promotional value the result was priceless but Kiser’s masterful images are also credited with convincing Congress to create Glacier Park in 1910.

Mountain Lake, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: Gutenberg

Kiser’s star had faded by 1930 but what he left behind is truly a remarkable documentation of the taming of frontier America.  

Fishing at St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: ebay

Two Medicine Lake and Camp, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser.  Credit: cemetarian.com

Iceberg Lake, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: photobucket

Great Northern Depot, Lower View, Everett Washington by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: Billyspostcads.com