Yellowstone Art Museum Blends New and Old West

Yellowstone Art Museum is a beautiful building, itself created from the old Yellowstone County Jail and expanded into a light-bathed facility with exquisite exhibit halls. The museum is at 401 North 27th Street in downtown Billings.

Humble Grace: A Tribute to Frances Senska opens for exhibit March 19 and will be on display through June 27. This small exhibition is a tribute to Frances Senska, an important Montana artist and educator.

Senska died at her home in Bozeman on Christmas day. She was 95. Senska was championed for her lifelong devotion to the ceramic arts, for her prolific career, and for nurturing several of the 20th century's leading ceramists. She was elected an Honorary Member of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts in 1979 and Fellow of the American Craft Council in 1988.

Senska made humble, deceptively ordinary objects with no pretenses to making high art. Instead, despite her modernist training, she dedicated her creative energies to making utilitarian objects that she hoped would find their way into people's everyday lives.

Senska was born in Cameroon, Africa, and settled in the USA with her missionary parents in 1929. She initially studied industrial design, receiving a BA in 1935 and an MA in 1939, both from the University of Iowa and then taught art for three years at Grinnell College, Iowa until 1942. Senska was a founding member of the Montana Institute of the Arts (MIA) in 1948, Crafts Chair from 1954-56 and Director from 1961-62. She was elected a Fellow of the MIA in 1964 and received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at MSU in 1982.

She received the Montana Governor's Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts in 1988 and the Meloy-Stevenson Award of Distinction for Outstanding Service to the Archie Bray Foundation in 2003.

Equine Muse: Deborah Butterfield will be up through June 20.

For more than 30 years, Montana artist Deborah Butterfield has interpreted her equine muse in a plethora of materials, scales, postures, and moods. This exhibition highlights three sculptures by Butterfield from the YAM’s permanent collection, and invites the viewer to experience three different constructivist approaches to her subject.

Brown Horse Thought, the largest work in the exhibition, is an unusual, full-scale double portrait that is a recent gift from the artist.

Derby Horse, a rarely seen, near half-size work, appears to be made of found materials, as is often the case with Butterfield’s work. Instead, the work is made of patinated bronze.

The final work, Leona, is a rather rare, near half-size work that is made from mud and straw over a steel armature. Exhibited here for the first time, Leona is among the last artworks donated to YAM by YAM’s late, great patron, Miriam Sample.

In the YAM lobby is a fourth sculpture by Butterfield, the popular Ferdinand.

Wild West and Tranquil Seas will be on view in the Murdock Gallery until April 2010. Private collector William I. Koch shares 11 choice selections from his private collection with Montana audiences.

YAM invites visitors to come and see these wonderful works of art, which are celebratory, elegiac, tender, and confident.

The YAM is the region’s largest contemporary art museum offering changing exhibitions, education, café, and a 7,300-piece permanent collection. The Yellowstone Art Museum hours are Tuesday – Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sunday noon – 5 p.m. Extended hours on Thursdays 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Members visit free, $5 adults, $3 students with valid ID, $3 children 6 – 18, under 6 free, $10 family (2 adults and 3 children max) $4 discount price (please inquire at 256-6804).