Browsing by Author "Corriel, Michele"

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The emergence of modernism in Montana
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2017) Corriel, Michele; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Todd Larkin
Modernist art burst onto New York City's art scene with the Armory Show in 1913. However, it took nearly forty years for Modernism to take hold in Montana. Using Montana State College (now Montana State University-Bozeman) as my case study, I intend to examine the type of climate that allows a new art movement to develop as well as the impediments that prevented Modernism from taking root. In examining other factors contributing to Modernism outside of major urban cities I found two of these factors missing from the Intermountain West, and particularly in Montana. The factors missing were wealthy art patrons to encourage experimentation and/or art colonies to create a safe environment for artists. Digging further, I found an economic and cultural resistance to Modernism in Montana, which threatened the economic foundation of a burgeoning tourism industry. After World War II, with the G.I. Bill opening up higher education to a new kind of student body, pupils began requesting a serious academic art program. At the same time the expansion of Land Grant Universities enlarged their small art departments, creating both the monetary security an art patron might present, as well as the collegial and teaching community of an artist colony. At Montana State College, beginning in the mid-1940s three artists pioneered the Modernist movement in Montana: Frances Senska, Jessie Wilber and Robert DeWeese. Working together they created a sustained art movement able to overcome the cultural resistance to Modernism in the state. My goal is to give these artists a profile commensurate with other great Modernist artists by formal examination of their work, and applications of various art historical methodologies.
The Montana modernists: redefining Western art
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2019) Corriel, Michele; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary Murphy
Through an investigation of twentieth-century Montana postwar societal aspects, I examine the emergence of an avant-garde art movement in the state. The pioneers of this movement, Jessie Wilber, Frances Senska, Bill Stockton, Isabelle Johnson, Robert DeWeese, and Gennie DeWeese, nurtured, sustained, and promulgated an aesthetic philosophy that redefined Western art in Montana. Divided into three sections, the exploration of this avant-garde movement concentrates on place, teaching/artistic lineage, and community. Part one examines place. For some, place refers to the physical attributes of Montana in the postwar years, the isolation, the beauty, and the complexity of its landscape that not only served as a backdrop but also played center stage in the influences on life and art. For others in the group, place became a metaphor for the body politic, a personal evocation of space held within the boundaries of time. Part two charts each artist's artistic lineage to further understand how they arrived at their particular artistic styles. Community, the third section, seeks to answer one of the larger questions within this work: how did six artists working in Montana in the late 1940s create a thriving art community that opposed the meta-narrative of the West and still resonates in contemporary Montana art. A thorough study of their teaching styles, art techniques, and social gatherings demonstrates the workings of a tight-knit community of like-minded artists (and writers, dancers, musicians, and philosophers) as they addressed the changing zeitgeist of a postwar America, cultivating fresh ideas through a modern lens, allowing Montanans a new option for viewing themselves.