Forbes Lifestyle #Wanderlust
November 10, 2017
Below is an excerpt from the larger article “Spring Creek Ranch: Gateway To The Grand Tetons”
Published October 23, 2017 by John Oseid.
Once you’ve settled into your Spring Creek room, what a delight it is to venture out and discover the National Museum of Wildlife Art that lies just north of Jackson and across from the National Elk Refuge where thousands of the magnificent creatures congregate over winter. While many western art museums are filled with cowboy and Indian fantasy paintings, the thirty-year-old museum with some 5,000 artworks is a uniquely significant cultural achievement.
Part of the museum’s sculpture trail, artist Sandy Scott‘s bronze moose in front of the museum is über-lifesize. On the other size scale, tiny brimstone figures exhibited inside date from 2500 BC. There’s a Rodin “crying lion” sculpture and small tableaux by luminaries such as Rousseau and O’Keeffe.
A number of small pieces by the giant naturalist artist Albert Bierstadt are on display, while many viewers are likely to discover Carl Clemens Moritz Rungius for the first time. Rungius was another of the German-speaking world’s great artistic contributors to western mythology and ultimately through his art to conservation promotion.
Who knew that Andy Warhol produced animal works? This year, the museum mounted a special exhibit of the pop genius’s Endangered Species, an example of the institution’s strong curatorial chops.
Be sure to ask for the docent Martha Van Genderen whose knowledge, love and respect for the art shows in her every commentary. The museum’s bright Palate bistro is a recent addition and makes for a nice break between sections of the surprisingly huge regional museum.