Skip to main content

Yellowstone National Park Through the Lens of Time

May 21, 2016 - August 28, 2016

This exhibit of National Park art photography compares photos taken by William Henry Jackson’s Yellowstone photography of 1871 with local photographer Bradly Boner’s contemporary shots taken from the same vantage point, celebrating the work of both photographers as it validates more than a century of conservation efforts. These photographs tell the success story of the National Park Service’s efforts to preserve landscapes considered especially valuable.

TOP No. 233. TOWER FALLS, near view from near its base. About 200 yards above its entrance into the Yellowstone, [Tower Creek] pours over an abrupt descent of 156 feet. BOTTOM The stones and boulders in Tower Creek as it flows away from Tower Fall have been shifted by decades of spring runoffs. The columns of volcanic breccia, which give the cascade and creek their name, have crumbled over time; recent photographs indicate the large, broad column immediately to the viewer's right of the waterfall in Jackson's photograph fell in the late 1990s, obscuring the large boulder at the base of the falls and changing the course of the creek below. Other recent photographs indicate the taller spire above and behind it, known as Sulphur Rock, crumbled in the early to mid-2000s.
TOP No. 252. GRAND CAÑON. West side, one mile below the falls, looking down. BOTTOM A pine tree bisects the scene from where Jackson made this photograph looking down the Grand Canyon from near the Grand View overlook on the west side of the canyon, and a large chunk of the stone tower on the right side of Jackson's image has fractured off, exposing lighter, less weathered rock underneath.
TOP No. 214. WHITE MOUNTAIN HOT SPRINGS, Group of lower basins. BOTTOM Several of Jackson's images at Mammoth Hot Springs, including this of Minerva Terrace, were re-photographed at a wider field of view in order to show almost a century and a half of growth and expansion. The hot springs at Mammoth can deposit anywhere from a trace to one meter of travertine, or calcium carbonate, per year. Combined, the hot springs at Mammoth are estimated to flow at a rate of about 500 gallons per minute, leaving behind more than 2 tons of travertine every day.
Other Exhibits
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3

Scenes of Transcendent Beauty: Thomas Moran’s Yellowstone

Through August 23, 2022

Scenes of Transcendent Beauty includes 20 watercolor field sketches on loan from the Yellowstone Heritage and Resource Center in Gardiner, Montana. These intimate sketches provide a rare window into Moran’s artistic process and give the viewer insight into Moran’s Yellowstone.

See the Exhibit
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3

Bonheur & Beyond: Celebrating Women in Wildlife Art

Through August 16, 2022

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Bonheur’s birth and in honor of the Museum’s 35th anniversary, we present an exhibit featuring works by Bonheur alongside a selection of historic and contemporary pieces by women artists from the permanent collection.

See the Exhibit