In May 2017, Oh Be Joyful Gallery began researching the history of art in Crested Butte. A Project to Uncover, Discover & Archive the History of Art in Crested Butte. The project collects, preserves, shares, and honors the history of art in the Gunnison Valley. We are discovering art objects and identifying artists whose oral, artistic and written histories collectively tell the story of how the past has shaped the strong arts community of today. Acquiring and preserving these concrete examples of our community’s history will build a resource for future generations.
The project’s importance has been recognized through several grants. The on-going curated collection of objects has been exhibited 6 times in cooperation with the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum, The Gunnison Pioneer Museum, and Western Colorado University.
The research efforts have led to a historical collection of objects numbering in the hundreds. As the collection grows, so does the need for a permanent home to not only store, but tell the amazing stories of the artists who focused on this region as their subject.
Creatives Involved in the Project
Thank you to this growing, creative team who continue to contribute to discovering and illuminating our shared history of creativity in this place, Crested Butte & the Gunnison Country.
Research and curatorial efforts are directed by Nicholas Reti, local Art-chaeologist and owner of Oh Be Joyful Gallery. Nicholas has compiled years of research and purchased a large number of historical prints and photographs to build the foundation for the project.
Local artist, Peggy Morgan Stenmark has also volunteered hours researching historical newspapers from Gothic, Crested Butte and Irwin to inform a vision of working artists in the late 1800s. She is compiling newspaper stories about live-theater, music, and culture of the early mining communities. This research has taken place in the Western State Colorado University Savage Library archives.
Another local creative, Ivy Walker, is employed as a project manager to organize the collection of information, coordinate meetings, conduct research, and project direction. She helped to draft the successful grant to the creative district in the fall of 2017.
Dr. Jeffrey Taylor of Western Colorado University recognized the importance of the project early on and has helped secure funding through the Crested Butte Creative District. He also has introduced the project as annual exhibition researched and curated by the Masters of Art in Gallery and Museum Management.
Local filmmaker and animator, Ryan Sullivan has created stunning, short animations that bring to life old drawings, photographs and engravings that were included in geological surveys, weekly digests or books of the time.
Janet Weil, local writer, crafted a series of intriguing biographies featuring the creative and intrepid men who recorded our area through geological survey drawings, photographs and engravings. She also has a feature article in the summer 2018 issue of the Crested Butte magazine that features an artist couple, the Richters, who taught and painted en plein air in the Gunnison Valley in the early 1900s.
Contracted by the Crested Butte Creative District, Shaffer Nickel, a local filmmaker, is creating a short film about the History of Art in Crested Butte project.
The project continued to develop with the addition of research by Western Art Historian Heather Orr, and retired Western librarian Ethel Rice, and the descendant of Henry and Catherine Richter (Western’s first art instructors) who had been working on a very similar project to study the university’s art collection and its faculty.
New research done with Jan Nixon of the Pioneer Museum have revealed even more works by early artists of the Gunnison Valley. All of those works have been generously lent by the Pioneer Museum to the exhibition at the Gunnison Art Center in 2020.
List of Exhibitions and Film Releases
December 2017 – Oh Be Joyful Gallery
Summer 2018 – Crested Butte Heritage Museum
August 2018 – Crested Butte Heritage Museum
December 2018 – Released the film “Art History of the Gunnison Valley”
August 2019 – Crested Butte Art Festival
September 2019 – Quigley Gallery Exhibition
October 2020 – Gunnison Art Center
Special thanks to our financial contributions with which this project would not be possible:
The Kull Family, Austin, TX
Don and Cathey Humphreys
Crested Butte Creative District Community Grant Fall 2017
Oh Be Joyful Gallery
Nicholas Reti
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We are thankful to a handful of private donors who share our excitement and vision on this project. If you would like to join them in supporting our efforts, we have made a limited number of framed original prints by Thomas Moran from the “Picturesque America” publication for $1,000.
