The Bison Project

The bison are scheduled to roam once again at the C.M. Russell Museum, and this time they are sticking around! The Bison: American Icon, Heart of Plains Indian Culture is a new permanent installation opening in December of 2008 at the Russell Museum.

Did you know that nearly 75% of the Museum’s entire collection of paintings, sculpture and works on paper depict bison and American Indians? Specifically, the Museum’s permanent collection features over 700 examples of American Indian art that has mostly remained in storage and never been exhibited. These objects have come into the Museum’s collection as gifts from patrons and collectors since the Museum opened in 1953. Some were given to Charlie Russell as gifts, and others were collected by the artist himself (Russell often used these objects as props which appear in many of his paintings).

This upcoming exhibition will examine the culture of the Northern Plains through the interactions of people with bison from 1750 to present. It will also allow the Museum to interpret and display its substantial collection of Plains Indian cultural artifacts for the very first time. The Bison will be installed in four galleries, including one brand new gallery space, located on the Museum’s lower level.

In each of the four galleries, the nature of these interactions will be explored through different voices, objects, images and historical information. The exhibition will weave the perspectives of American Indians, early explorers, settlers, miners, hunters, ranchers, artists, government entities, and their contemporaries today, to reveal how this great creature has continued to be a source of currency for so many – culturally, economically, and symbolically. The Bison is intended to help visitors make better “big picture” connections between all of the Museum’s major exhibition areas. In addition, it will help visitors understand how the subject of the bison relates to larger national strands of history and contemporary life. The Bison will also further Charlie Russell’s own personal objectives of encouraging appreciation of the West and of the American Indian.

The Bison will be one of the largest exhibitions ever mounted at the C.M. Russell Museum; it has already garnered much needed financial support in the form of federal and private funding, but additional funding opportunities still exist. Current funding includes a special Indian Education for All pilot project, which creates a partnership between the Russell Museum and the Great Falls Public School system. The two entities will work together as co-educators to promote American Indian education using the Museum’s collection as reference. The Bison has also attracted an unprecedented loan of 37 objects from the world-class collection of Plains Indian materials at the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana. Significant works from the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma (the world’s largest collection of Western art) and from other collections will also be included in The Bison.