ELIZABETH DAVEY LOCHRIE was born in Deer Lodge, July 1, 1890. Her life was spent in early Montana settlements with "braid" Indian neighbors; she was educated in Butte schools and received her art education at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1911. During 1924-1925 she painted eighteen children's murals for the Montana State Hospital.
After 1931, Lochrie specialized in Native American portraits, particularly of Blackfeet tribal members, having produced more than a thousand water colors, oils, murals and sculptures. Admission to her lectures was frequently a donation of clothing and other necessities for needy Native Americans. She was adopted by the Blackfeet and given the name "Netchitaki" which translates as "Woman Alone In Her Way." The Blackfeet said, "She came to us from over the Western mountains, this white woman. She was friendly and understanding. We brought her into the medicine teepee and made her our sister."
From 1937 to 1939, Lochrie painted some historic murals in the post offices at Burley and Saint Anthony, Idaho and in Dillon and Galen, Montana. From 1936 to 1939, she was staff artist for the Great Northern Railroad in Glacier National Park. She died in the company of her family in Ojai, California in 1981 leaving a lasting legacy of Montana people and places.
|
JOHN LOUIS CLARKE 1881 to 1970 was the son of Blackfeet tribesman Horace Clarke . Scarlet fever at the age of two left him permanently deaf and mute, earning him his Blackfeet name, Cutapuis—“the man who talks not.” Throughout his life, he patiently communicated by writing notes, using sign language, or creating art. John’s artistic abilities emerged at a very early age. In 1913 he returned to East Glacier where he opened a studio from which he operated until his death in 1970.
John Clarke is usually considered self-taught, although he attended the Chicago Art Institute for a short time. John became a most prolific artist who worked in oils, watercolors, clays, charcoals, and even crayons. But his real fame developed from his international reputation for his sensitively executed, vibrant wood carvings of bears, mountain goats, and other wild animals of the Glacier National Park, particularly using cottonwood. At his height, John was "generally considered the best portrayer of Western wildlife in the world." He crafted a career as a renowned Blackfeet artist; his legacy survives as a worthy inspiration to all Montanans.
|
TOMAR JACOB HILEMAN was born on November 6, 1882 in Marienville, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the Effingham School of Photography in Chicago. In 1911, he moved to Kalispell, Montana and opened his own portrait studio in the Alton Pearce Building. Hileman began his association with the Great Northern shortly after arriving in Montana. An exceptional climber, "Mountain Goat Hileman", often perched on narrow ledges to capture just the right moment on film. In 1925 Hileman signed a contract with the Great Northern for $125 a month. Not only did he capture impressive scenic images, but he documented the visits of important individuals to the area. As Great Northern’s official photographer, he was required to take photos of visiting dignitaries and tour groups. The railroad sent him on nationwide promotional tours that included visits with publishers and newspaper editors. Since his images were distributed throughout the country, Hileman soon became quite a celebrity.
T. J. Hileman is known as the one photographer most closely associated with Glacier National Park. For many years he produced and sold countless photographs from his commercial shop. . Hileman's photographs were reproduced on countless postcards and in brochures, periodicals and books. On March 13, 1945 Tomar Hileman died at his home on Flathead Lake. In 1985, the Glacier Natural History Association purchased over one thousand of Hileman's nitrate negatives.
|
FRANK BIRD LINDERMAN carved a notable nich in Western Literature by recording faithfully Plains Indian tales, legends, and customs.
Frank B. Linderman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 25, 1869, the son of James Bird Linderman and Mary Ann Brannan Linderman. He attended schools in Ohio and Chicago, including Oberlin College, before moving to Montana Territory in 1885 at the age of sixteen. He worked as a trapper from 1885 to 1891, then met his wife, Minnie Jane Johns, in Demersville, MT, in 1891. They were married in 1893 in Missoula, MT. They had three children: Wilda, Verne, and Norma.
From 1893 to 1897, he worked in Butte, MT, as an assayer, then moved to Brandon, MT. About 1900, the family moved to Sheridan, MT, where he was an assayer, furniture salesman, and newspaperman.
Linderman was also a politician: he served in the Montana state legislature in the 1903 and 1905 sessions. He ran for the U. S. Congress in 1916 and 1918; in 1924 he ran for the U. S. Senate against Thomas J. Walsh. He was also a Mason, and was inducted to that brotherhood in Sheridan in 1899. He received the Scottish Rite in the Helena consistory in 1911. He continued to be active in Masonry and held a number of offices in that organization.
From 1905 to 1907, he was Montana’s Assistant Secretary of State. After that, he became a successful insurance agent with the Guardian Insurance Company of America. In 1917, he bought property at Goose Bay on Flathead Lake, moved the family from Helena, and pursued writing full-time. He also took up sculpting in bronze.
Linderman had wanted to be a writer as early as 1911, when he had been encouraged by Opie Read. Read encouraged him to submit his first collection of tales to Charles Scribner’s Sons, who published it as Indian Why Stories in 1915. He continued to publish to favorable reviews, but found the profession less than remunerative. In 1924, with his writing income still small, he bought the Hotel Kalispell and ran it for two years, then sold it as a profit. He changed publishers in 1929, and worked with Hermann Hagedorn of the John Day Company. Charlie Russell, a lifelong and close friend, illustrated many of his books.
He devoted a great deal of his life to Montana’s Native Americans, learning and writing about their ways and trying to help them in material ways. His first contacts with them were as a trapper, when he became acquainted with members of the Flathead and Kootenai tribes; he later knew many Crow, Blackfeet, Cree, and Chippewas. Many Indians taught him tribal legends, including Kootenai Two-Comes-Over-the-Hill; Muskegon, a Cree; and Full-Of-Dew, a Chippewa medicine man. He was instrumental in founding the Rocky Boy’s Reservation for Montana’s Cree and Chippewa. He was adopted into three tribes: the Blackfeet, the Cree, and the Crow.
Linderman’s published books include Indian Why Stories: Sparks from War Eagle’s Lodge-Fire (1915); Indian Lodge-Fire Stories (1918); On a Passing Frontier: Sketches from the Northwest (1920); Indian Old-Man Stories
|
KATHRYN LEIGHTON became a celebrated Indian portrait and landscape painter. She graduated from the Massachusetts Normal Art School in 1900 and later studied at the Stickney School of Art in Pasadena when she and her husband moved to Los Angeles. Doing floral still life and landscapes, she repeatedly depicted her favorite subject, which was the desert in bloom. In 1918, she began to paint American Indian portraits, which brought her international recognition. Having been told about Glacier National Park by Charles Russell, she spent much time in that region creating panoramic landscapes. In 1926, the Great Northern Railway purchased all of her Glacier Park paintings of that year. Russell later introduced her to the Blackfeet Indians who eventually adopted her into their tribe. In 1929, she did a tour of Europe and the Eastern United States with her paintings, and gained widespread recognition for her artistic skill and the educational aspects of her work.
|
|
