Artwork

Alexander Calder, (1898–1976) whose illustrious career spanned much of the twentieth century, is one of the most acclaimed and influential sculptors of our time. Born in a family of celebrated, though more classically trained artists, Calder utilized his innovative genius to profoundly change the course of modern art. In the 1920s, he began by developing new methods of sculpting in wire, essentially draw- ing three-dimensional figures in space. He is renowned for the invention of the mobile, whose suspended, abstract elements move and balance in changing harmony. From the 1950s onward, Calder devoted himself to making outdoor sculpture on a grand scale from bolted sheet steel. Today, these stately titans grace public plazas in cities throughout the world. At Tippet Rise, two of his works are on gracious loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Institution’s museum of international modern and contemporary art, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. With dark steel arches standing at 25’ 6” feet tall, that invite viewers to walk beneath it, Two Discs was the first work of art encountered for many decades by visitors to the Hirshhorn, and it is the first to greet visitors to Tippet Rise. The Stainless Stealer is a large mobile, 15 feet across, that currently hangs above the concert area in the Olivier Music Barn. Most of Calder’s mobiles are painted, but this one reflects the human condition around it. Learn more at calder.org.

As one of today’s most admired living sculptors, Patrick Dougherty composes with nature:—wielding saplings and sticks to build monumental structures that echo, play and tussle with the land. In 2015 Dougherty worked with nature at Tippet Rise to craft Daydreams, a sculpture from local willows. Partially enclosed and protected from the Montana elements by a 1,000-square-foot replica of a frontier-period schoolhouse Dougherty’s piece embodies the fundamental connection between art and nature. He worked with the contractor Max Anthon of JxM, who crafted a plan to replicate the nearby Stockade School, down to its missing shingles, which was then built by CTA Architects of Bozeman. In 2022 Dougherty returned to Tippet Rise to create a companion piece to his meditation on school-day daydreams. Cursive Takes a Holiday, connected to the schoolhouse by sinuous branches, creates a series of circular spaces that visitors can step inside and out of.
Learn more at www.stickwork.net.

Known for engaging communities and creating structures sympathetic to their natural environment, Francis Kéré is among the vanguard of architects working today. The recipient of the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize, Kéré’s works are globally recognized for their debt to African vernacular architecture and their relationship to the unique sites they inhabit. At Tippet Rise, he created Xylem (2019), a gathering pavilion inspired by the traditional togunas of the Dogon culture of Kéré’s native West Africa: sacred low-roofed structures where village elders gather to discuss community issues. Named to evoke the vital internal layers of a tree’s living structure, the 2,100-square-foot Xylem is constructed of locally and sustainably sourced ponderosa and lodgepole pine, and features a canopy of vertical logs, which filter shafts of light in an ever-changing pattern onto the seating areas. Offering a place to pause and reflect near the main Cottonwood Campus, the scenic pavilion is nestled amid aspen and cottonwood trees near the bank of Grove Creek. Learn more at www.kere-architecture.com

Partners Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa lead the team at Ensamble Studio that blurs the lines between land, art, architecture, structure, and sculpture. Commissioned by Tippet Rise to create a series of gateways, markers, and roadside shelters as a narrative of the landscape, Ensamble Studio created three sculptural structures, cast from the land at Tippet Rise, that guide and inspire visitors in their exploration of the ranch. The Beartooth Portal (2015; 26’ 51⁄2’’ tall), the Inverted Portal (2016; 22’ 51⁄2” tall), and the Domo (2016; 98’5” long) emerge from the earth on a large scale, like visceral manifestations of nature. Their primitive quality, rawness, and geologic expression inspire a fascinating exchange with the natural surroundings. The Domo also serves as an outdoor venue for performances during the concert season and was acoustically designed for superior sound projection. The Folds, added in 2022, are a series of 16 concrete hybrid art-seats, inspired by and cast from draped canvas, sited throughout the art center. Learn more at www.ensamble.info.

Isabelle Johnson, whose family homesteaded part of the Tippet Rise property for much of the 20th century, was among the first and most influential Modernist artists in Montana. She studied painting and sculpture at Columbia University and Skowhegan. Her large collection of paintings from the 1940s through the 1990s capture the essence of living and working on the rugged natural landscape that surrounded and inspired her. Johnson was an educator too, having taught at Eastern Montana College in Billings from 1949 to 1961. Upon her death, she bequeathed her land to Montana State University to serve educational and agricultural purposes. As a working sheep and cattle ranch, Tippet Rise continues to honor that intention through a wide variety of opportunities for learning, listening, interpretation, and inspiration, including educational outreach programs for students ranging from elementary school-age through university and graduate students. Two of her watercolor landscapes hang in the Olivier Music Barn.

Alexander Liberman (1912-1999) was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1912. His father was an economist and lumber expert who advised the Tsar and then, following the revolution, to Lenin. His mother started the State Theater for Children in the Soviet Union. Through his father’s connections, Alex left the Soviet Union in 1921 for England and eventually studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He began working at VU magazine in 1932.

With the German occupation of Paris, Liberman left Europe for New York and secured a job in the art department of Vogue in 1941. In 1962 he was appointed Editorial Director of all Condé Nast publications worldwide, a position which he held until 1994 and through which he. was influential in shaping the cultural landscape of post-war America.

His mother encouraged Alex to paint and draw from a young age. Around 1950 he started making sculpture and in 1959 he learned to weld. Many of his sculptures were assembled from industrial objects, often using circular oil drums. After his ground-breaking show at the Storm King Art Center in 1977, he was widely received as one of America’s foremost artists.

At Tippet Rise, the 40-foot-tall Archway II (1984/2016) is sited in a dramatic saddle, serving as a metaphoric gateway to the Beartooth Mountain range in the distance. Like many of his monumental sculptures, it is painted a striking red, and is illustrative of Liberman’s lifelong fascination with altars and arches which draw viewers into their sacred spaces.

Learn more at www.alexanderlibermanestate.com

Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) was one of America’s foremost artists. Born in Ukraine, she emigrated to the United States with her family in 1905. Nevelson’s sculpted wood and steel assemblages, which she painted in one color, most notably black, brought a Mayan connection with both land and sky into the vocabulary of American art. She went on to use other materials, such as aluminum and Plexiglas. Nevelson was well-known for her iconic persona and style, which she viewed as an extension of her art. At Tippet Rise, Trilogy (1978) is set in a gently rising valley just beyond the Cottonwood Campus, closer to the broad landscape which Nevelson had hoped for. The work is comprised of three large-scale pieces, made of Cor-Ten steel, steel, and aluminum. Towering 44 feet high at its tallest point, the work evokes a family unit or a trio of entities in varied stages of growth and development.

Wendy Red Star lives and works in Portland, Oregon. An enrolled member of the Apsaìalooke (Crow) Tribe, Red Star works across disciplines to explore the intersections of Native American ideologies and colonialist structures, both historically and in contemporary society. Drawing on pop culture, conceptual art strategies, and the Crow traditions within which she was raised, Red Star pushes the conversation surrounding Native American perspectives in new directions. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad and is in more than 60 public collections. Red Star holds a BFA from Montana State University, Bozeman, and an MFA in sculpture from University of California, Los Angeles. At Tippet Rise The Soil You See… (2023) stands at eight-feet tall and features a large piece of glass depicting a red thumbprint. Inscribed in the ridges are the names of 50 Apsáalooke nation chiefs and tribal representatives who signed land treaties with the U.S. government between 1825 and 1880, oftentimes using their thumbprint or an X rather than their names. The Soil You See… is one of the first works guests encounter at the art center and is in significant dialogue with the land, which sits within the traditional sacred land of the Apsáalooke. Learn more at wendyredstar.com.

One of the most influential artists of his generation, Richard Serra (1938—2024) is known for his large-scale, abstract sculptures for architectural, urban, and landscape settings around the world. Born in San Francisco to immigrant parents from Spain and Odessa, Serra was influenced by his father’s work as a pipe fitter at the shipyard during World War II, and his own summers spent working in steel mills. He attended the University of California in Berkeley and Santa Barbara, and later studied painting at Yale University. During his career, he lived and worked in New York and on the North Fork of Long Island. Serra had his first solo exhibition in New York at the Leo Castelli Warehouse in 1969. His sculptures and drawings were celebrated with exhibi- tions at museums and galleries around the world, including two retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York twenty years apart. He received numerous awards during his lifetime, including the J. Paul Getty Medal in 2018 and France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur in 2015. At Tippet Rise, his work Crossroads II (1990) is a gift from Leonard I. Korman in memory of Jane F. Korman. Arranged at 90-degree angles and separated by distances ranging from eight to 85 feet, visitors can walk among the four solid, eight-inch-thick plates made of weatherproof steel, which sit on a prow of volcanic rock overlooking the dramatic Murphy Canyon.

Widely recognized as one of the most influential artists of his generation to emerge from the Abstract Expressionist era, Mark di Suvero has revolutionized the world of sculpture and profoundly influenced fields such as modernist architecture, design, and land art. His large-scale steel sculptures, breaking away from the walls of museums, are meant to be experienced outside. His work probes time and space. Tippet Rise is proud to present four of di Suvero’s sculptures: Proverb (2002), a meditation on the tiny tools we use to measure infinity, which has a pendulum element that moves like a metronome from the top of the 60-foot-tall work; Beethoven’s Quartet (2003), a clever commentary on the composer’s seminal work, which may also be played with rubber mallets, like a steel drum, across the 30-foot-wide sculpture; Whale’s Cry (1981-1983), a sculpture which, standing at 27 feet tall, plays with gravity and deftly balances dense materials to allow graceful movement; and Scythian (1979-1995), with a large kinetic spinner top that reaches 24 feet, and rotates in the wind. Also on display in the Olivier Music Barn is Seminal (1978-1982), an example of Di Suvero’s vibrant style of painting. Learn more at www.spacetimecc.com.

With ongoing installations around the world, Stephen Talasnik describes himself as a structural artist. He draws inspiration from imaginary architectural worlds like Piranesi’s, which he materializes into natural sculptures that fold into and accentuate the contours of the surrounding landscape. At Tippet Rise, Talasnik was commissioned to create a wooden structure for Tippet Rise. Made of yellow cedar and steel footings, Satellite #5: Pioneer was engineered by ARUP and constructed by Gunnstock Timber Frames over the course of two summers in 2015 and 2016. Measuring 35 feet high with a footprint of 50 by 35 feet, the artwork was conceived to reflect the contrasting aspects of the land observed during his early visits—the vast, rolling hills, which he found reminiscent of the moon’s surface in NASA’s early black-and-white satellite images, and the historic homesteading cabins he observed on the land. Also installed inside the Olivier Music Barn, flanking both sides of the stage, are Archaeology and Galaxy – small-scale structures made of wood that evoke the aesthetics of architectural models. Learn more at www.stephentalasnik.com.

Ursula von Rydingsvard was born 1942 in Deensen, Germany. She has lived and worked in New York City for five decades. Throughout her remarkable career, von Rydingsvard has become one of the most influential sculptors working today. She is best known for creating large-scale, often monumental sculpture from cedar beams. Her signature abstract shapes refer to things in the real world—vessels, bowls, tools, and other objects—each revealing the mark of the human hand while also summoning natural forms and forces. In recent years, von Rydingsvard has explored other mediums in depth, such as bronze, paper, and resin. The artist’s large-scale bronze works can be found in many public spaces and her work is represented in the permanent collections of 40 museums around the world.

The first bronze work to be installed at Tippet Rise, Bronze Bowl with Lace (2013/14) is sited within a natural bowl that opens to an expansive northern view across the plateaus and canyons of the art center, and far beyond into the Stillwater and Yellowstone river valleys. Standing at 19.5 feet tall, this monumental work was first constructed from cedar wood before being cast in bronze. With shades of rusty red, yellow, gold, and green, the sculpture’s patina absorbs and reflects the surrounding grasses, sage, soil, and rocks. The delicate upper-filagree section, based on real lace, filters light as the sun moves across the sky each day. Learn more at ursulavonrydingsvard.net.

Marie Watt is an American artist and a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians with German-Scot ancestry. Her interdisciplinary work draws from history, biography, Iroquois proto-feminism, and Indigenous teachings; in it she explores the intersection of history, community, and storytelling. Through collaborative actions she instigates multigenerational and cross-disciplinary conversations that might create a lens and conversation for understanding connectedness to place, one another, and the universe. At Tippet Rise, her wall-hanging Companion Species (Floating and Held) (2022), is the first work to greet guests as they arrive at the Visitor Center within the Olivier Music Barn. Made of reclaimed satin bindings, industrial felt, tin jingles, and cotton twill, this textile work depicts a sunset in the clouds and evokes the sense of comfort, warmth, and healing that a blanket provides as it is gifted and passed down from birth until the end of life. Learn more at mariewattstudio.com.

The contemporary artist Ai Weiwei is world renowned for creating timely and striking multifaceted pieces in a range of mediums such as sculpture, installations, film, performance, and photography. His conceptual works make strong aesthetic statements that resonate with current phenomena across today’s geopolitical world. At Tippet Rise, his work Iron Tree stands at 20’ 71⁄2 , on a natural rise and, from a distance, blends seamless into the landscape. Iron Tree comprises 97 found tree elements that were molded, cast in iron, and inter- locked using a classic Chinese method of joining. It expresses the artist’s interest in fragments and the importance of the individual, without which the whole would not exist. It brings to mind the artist’s earlier work Tree (2009–2010), in which disparate segments of felled trees were joined together to create entirely original forms. Learn more at aiweiwei.com.