Catherine Courtenaye, oil on panel, 2012
MISSOULA, MT.- The Missoula Art Museum presents a rare view into a superb private collection in Critical Eye: Selections from the Kim and Ruth Reineking Collection. Regionally and nationally renowned artists represented include: Anne Appleby, John Buck, Bobby Tilton Cone, Catherine Courtenaye, Gennie DeWeese, Elizabeth Dove, Clarice Dreyer, Bev Beck Glueckert, Stephen Glueckert, Kristi Hager, Trey Hill, Jerry Iverson, Terry Karson, Kathryn Kress, Beth Lo, Jon Lodge, Cathryn Mallory, Bobbie McKibben, Neil Parsons/Tall Eagle, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Jerry Rankin, James Reineking, Ace Sloan, and Patrick Zentz.
The exhibition features selections from the Reineking’s promised gift to the MAM collection. A sculptural vessel by Rudy Autio, a central figure in national ceramics, shares the gallery with a sculptural buoy form by Trey Hill, titled Buoyant, that might surprise a viewer familiar with his branched ceramic forms. In another area, Lela Autio’s lit neon Plexiglas faces Jon Lodge’s monochromatic-in-white Torqued Strands (Motet). The Reineking Collection is intensely local and deliberately modernist and contemporary; as such, it’s a natural extension of MAM’s collection in terms of subject matter and focus.
The Reinekings have collected quietly over the last few decades, assembling a magnificent collection almost as a by-product of their numerous friendships with artists and the museum. Many of the artists in the Reineking Collection have longstanding connections to MAM. Through significant donations of art, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith helped establish the museum’s important Contemporary American Indian Art Collection, which serves museums across the nations through loans of work by significant Native artists. Stephen Glueckert served as MAM’s curator for over 25 years. The Reinekings shared personal memories of their connection with artworks and important artists as vignettes on the wall labels accompanying many of the artworks.
Founded in 1975 and accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1987, MAM is emerging as the leading contemporary art museum in the Intermountain West. MAM is situated on the traditional, ancestral territories of the Séliš (Salish or “Flathead”) and Ql̓ispé (upper Kalispel or Pend d’Oreille) peoples in Missoula, Montana, USA. MAM is committed to respecting the indigenous stewards of the land it occupies. Their rich cultures are fundamental to artistic life in Montana and to the work of MAM. MAM is a fully accessible, free public museum boasting eight exhibition spaces, a library, and an education center in the heart of Missoula’s historic downtown.
Critical Eye: Selections From the Kim and Ruth Reineking Collection is on view at Missoula Art Museum through May 11, 2024.