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Educational Resources in the Community – The
Hockaday Museum of Art
BY LUCY SMITH
 Art
has something wonderful and germane to teach each of
us; one of the first lessons being that Art doesn’t
start out on a wall or a pedestal. Art is created
when someone is inspired (or hired) to record
something noteworthy. It is a lens, focused on life
as experienced across time and dimension. Created by
us, Art is ultimately all about us.
In the Hockaday Museum of Art’s Crown of the
Continent gallery, we can journey back to the glory
days of the Great Northern Railroad and the birth of
Glacier National Park.
 Our
time mobile - Art! Through art, we share the
adventures of entrepreneurs and explorers who came
west to settle this rugged country. We witness the
plight of the Blackfeet Indian Nation that once knew
the frontier as sacred homeland; and imagine helping
to build Going-to-the-Sun Highway, an engineering
feat that took 22 years to complete and created 50
miles of magnificent vistas. Art lets us experience
the history and spirit living within the stuff of
every painting, photograph, sculpture and artifact.
How is it that so many gifted artists happened to be
in Glacier
 Country
during this remarkable period in Montana’s history?
The Great Northern Railroad Company wanted to fill
its new Empire Builder westbound route with wealthy
travelers from the East Coast, and set about luring
them away from tours to Europe - the Swiss Alps was
a popular destination in those days – with a “See
America First!” campaign. As part of its ambitious
marketing strategy, the Great Northern hired artists
from Europe and the United States to showcase the
wonders of the Rocky Mountain West – North America’s
Alps. This virtual colony of artists painted and
sculpted, scripted and photographed Glacier Park in
all its wild splendor and luxurious accommodation.
Their works were reproduced and distributed all
along the railroad line on posters billboards,
playing cards, menus, stamps, coins and other
novelties. Scores of magnificent paintings and
photographs hung for years in grand Park hotels
built by the Great Northern; some remain there
today. Countless others were purchased by private
collectors from across the country and abroad.
 In
keeping with its mission to “…preserve the art and
culture of Glacier National Park,” the Hockaday
Museum houses a treasury of 600+ catalogued Glacier
Park art pieces and collectibles, and seeks to
acquire additional significant works from that
monumental era. Every item in the permanent
collection links us to those who once lived in this
special place, and to the artists who memorialized
them. Their artistic legacy lives on through today’s
Glacier Park artists who preserve our footprints
across this place and time as their mentors did at
the turn of the century. And on it shall go, Art –
all about us.
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