Glacier Art Museum features the work of Missoula artist Marge Dodge in posthumous retrospective exhibit
Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 3 weeks, 2 days AGO
Green Trees, watercolor, by Marge Dodge, circa 1962. (Image courtesy of the Marge Dodge Estate)
Glacier Art Museum presents the retrospective exhibition, A Life In Studio: Marge Dodge, March 20 through June 6.
The exhibit opens with a preview reception from 5 to 7 p.m. March 19 with remarks from museum Executive Director Alyssa Cordova and Dodge’s family members. The reception is free for museum members and $10 at the door for nonmembers.
A Life In Studio, organized and curated by the Glacier Art Museum and Dodge’s grandson, Chris LaRoche, features over 75 paintings, drawings, and sculpture by Dodge, a trailblazing woman artist and educator who created thousands of artworks in her lifetime, despite little public acclaim. This posthumous retrospective is her first museum exhibition in 40 years and is a visual narrative of a woman artist who lived through historic decades, creating art in her personal studio, often without ever exhibiting her work. She was born in 1918 and died in 2003.
“This project is the culmination of a lifelong, personal quest to understand this enigmatic person in my life,” LaRoche said. “I knew the artist as my grandmother, and we were close, but she was still a mystery. Her art has helped unravel a complex character whose contributions to Montana art were overlooked and unheralded in her time. Now the public and new generations will have the opportunity to know her work and story.”
Born in Stoughton, Wisconsin, Dodge, was a lifelong artist who honed her skills at the Layton School of Art, Milwaukee, the Atlanta College of Art, Georgia, and later University of Montana, Missoula, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art. Dodge was a versatile artist, proficient in a range of mediums including oil painting, encaustic, watercolor, drawing, and printmaking. She also enjoyed many creative hobbies like photography, pottery, crafts, and cooking.
After moving to Missoula in 1954, Marge became an integral part of the University of Montana's Art Program, collaborating with notable artists like Rudy Autio and Peter Volkous in the ceramics department. She went on to serve as fine arts chairman of the Montana Institute of the Arts from 1964-65 and as Missoula branch manager from 1973-75.