Items Without a Building…?
The University of Montana has an amazing permanent collection, but no place to put it.
Collectors, artists and university officials began putting together the collection in 1894. What a collection it is! Works by Frederic Remington, C.M. Russell, George Catlin, Karl Bodmer and Joseph Henry Sharp, among various Western artists. More modern folks like Andy Warhol are also represented. The items also include textiles, ceramics and memorabilia.
In all, the collection has 10,000 pieces valued at more than $17 million. But there’s no building to exhibit them in. Items are spread out among seven sites on campus and off. At any given time, only half of one percent of the collection is on exhibit.
Help is on the way. The university is raising $13.5 million for an endowment and a museum building. The design calls for a 33,000-square-foot facility with space for exhibits, educational programs, preservation and storage. If all goes as planned, groundbreaking for the state-of-the-art museum will start late next year or in 2011.
406-243-2019 – UMT.edu/MontanaMuseum
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