Glacier National Park Mural Restoration Project

History

Early visitors to Glacier Park Lodge were treated to architectural and visual grandeur inside the building that was almost as expansive as the surrounding landscape. Louis Hill, President of the Great Northern Railway, favored eclectic Victorian and Western themes and filled the Lodge with paintings, photographs, and artifacts. The murals were commissioned to fill the long horizontal spaces above the wainscoting.

The murals appear to be created from photographs and were painted using casein on canvas stretched on panel. Casein paint, derived from milk casein (milk protein), is a fast-drying, water-soluble medium used by artists. The scenic panels covered hundreds of square feet and appeared in a 1939 Glacier Park Lodge inventory as “51 watercolor panels”. There is some evidence that John Fery (1859-1934), the most well-known of the Glacier National Park artists, intended to paint these panels as he had drawn up some preliminary sketches. Instead, Hill decided to hire a muralist or team of artists to expedite the process.

It is apparent there was a second mystery artist or artists whose work decorated the lobbies and public areas of Glacier Park Lodge. The paintings are not signed and unfortunately, there is no history or record of who the artist was. There are numbers and locations on the backs of the panels identifying where they hung in Glacier Park Lodge.

All of the Glacier National Park Lodges were remodeled in the 1950’s. The new design required the removal of the murals except where a select few were left to provide “needed color accents”. The murals were cut from the moldings, removed from their panels, rolled up and discarded. Leona and Robert Brown of East Glacier saved fifteen of the murals and stored them at their home. The murals were passed down to their granddaughter Leanne and her husband Alan Goldhahn. In September of 2012, Leanne donated the murals to the  Glacier Art Museum (formerly Hockaday Museum of Art) in memory of her grandparents, Leona and Robert Brown.

The restoration of Glacier National Park Mural has been made possible through the generosity of Leanne and Alan Goldhahn, Joe Abbrescia Jr., Mark Norley, Whitefish Credit Union, and donations to the Glacier Art Museum Permanent Collection Fund.

Reference: Chacon, Hipolito Rafael; “The Miraculous Survival of the Art of Glacier National Park,” Montana The Magazine of Western History; Summer 2010:56-74.