While They’re Sleeping: A Story of Bears
October 23, 2021 - May 15, 2022
While They’re Sleeping: A Story of Bears offers compelling visions of North American grizzly (Ursus arctos horribilis), black (Ursus americanus), and polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s permanent collection. Here, bears stride across windy mountains and freezing tundra, battle with bison, journey with wolves, and appear as dreamy apparitions.
The moods and messages of the artwork on display shifts from 1846 to 2019 demonstrating how human values and beliefs have defined and redefined bears over the past two centuries — whether as hunting trophies, scientific specimens, devoted mothers, or supernatural beings.
Early works by artist-sportsmen document impressive bears in their prime to celebrate North America’s abundance of wildlife and advance early scientific knowledge. Other European-American artists of the past used bears to satirize human behavior or to embody vast wilderness. Today, a diverse group of artists help us to visualize bears in new ways. Their works express a fluidity between the human and animal worlds, with bears acting as messengers of artists’ personal emotions and experiences, pressing environmental issues, and cultural narratives.
While They’re Sleeping is also a story of bears as told by prominent bear biologists who have spent their lives with these animals and offer fascinating perspectives about the artwork on display. As you view this exhibition, ponder the question considered by artists and scientists alike: Why do bears hold the human imagination so tightly?
A special section of While They’re Sleeping pays tribute to Grand Teton National Park’s beloved resident Grizzly 399 through stunning photographs by renowned wildlife photographer and conservationist Thomas G. Mangelsen. His images reveal intimate scenes from her life in the wild, including her current litter of four captivating cubs.
Of note: This exhibit takes place during the winter months while the grizzly and black bears of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are in hibernation – While they’re Sleeping.
- 1
- 2
- 3
Out of the Shadows: Prints from the Permanent Collection
Through April 27, 2025Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, Picasso, Warhol—while many of the works in this show may be small in size, they are created by some of the biggest names in the canon of art history.
See the Exhibit
- 1
- 2
- 3
Tony Foster: Watercolour Diaries from the Green River
Through May 4, 2025Artist Tony Foster became fascinated with the 50-million-year-old Green River fossilized fish when he first saw them in 1985. It was from these small special objects that he comprised the idea to make a group of artworks about the Green River. He began his project in 2018, creating a major painting of Steamboat Rock and the horseshoe bend from his vantage point up a 400 foot cliff. In the summer of 2019 he took a rafting trip from the Gates of Lodore to Split Rock, creating five smaller paintings en route. From these initial works he created this exhibition about, in Foster’s words: “this magnificent river.”
See the Exhibit