The Surging, Thundering Herd - Sidney

Tuesday, June 04, 2019 - Saturday, August 31, 2019

This exhibit, sponsored by the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, features a cornucopia of vintage engravings from Lee Silliman’s collection depicting the iconic animal of the American West the buffalo, as it is commonly called. These engravings span 144 years of art, 1766-1910, from early European copper-plate engravings by artists who never actually saw the animal (they copied shamelessly!) to artists who witnessed these massive animals on the western frontier, and finally, to early 1900s color chromolithographic postcards. Many of these vibrant bison images were drawn from 19th-century publications such as Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, plus other, now rare sources. Notable frontier artists whose derivative prints (creations evolving from their paintings) are in the exhibit include; Frederic Remington, George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and William M. Cary. Five images are hand-tinted, and seven images were originally produced in color.