Montana Museum of Art & Culture

By the People, For the People:
New Deal Prints from the 1930s and 1940s

These 31 prints were created as part of an economic recovery program to pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression. They show art as a means of bolstering morale, combating poverty and creating a common vision for the nation.

For more information, contact Brandon Reintjes, MMAC Curator of Art at 406.243.2019.

Image: Thomas Hart Benton, Untitled (Watching the Train), ca. 1933 - 43

Traces: Montana's Frontier Re-visited
photographs by Richard S. Buswell

Traces is another series of photographs that brings the elements of time, memory, Montana history and nature together. There are 54 black and white photographs taken in Montana ghost towns and isolated sites of early settlement. More abstract than in previous series, this work takes a "micro" view at the the inevitable march of time. Through photographs of artifacts and eroding structures, Buswell narrates nature's reclamation of frontier sites. 

For more information, contact Brandon Reintjes, MMAC Curator of Art, at 406.243.2019.

Image: Richard S. Buswell, Carousel Hooves, silver gelatin print, 2003

Close To Home
new photographs by Richard S. Buswell

Richard S. Buswell, M.D., a fourth generation Montanan, has been photographing western settlement sites, ghost towns and frontier homesteads for over forty-one years. In this new body of work, Buswell moves closer to his subject matter. His close-up photographs are rendered abstractly. He uses silver selenide gelatin prints, among the most stable material for long term photographic preservation, to capture fleeting instants, or as he states, “the inspired moment”, that may vanish soon after the shutter clicks  

For more information, contact Brandon Reintjes, MMAC Curator of Art, at 406.243.2019.

Image: Richard S. Buswell, Skull Tree, silver gelatin print, 2010