POTD: Calder in Montana

Calder in Montana
Tippet Rise Art Center, Montana
2018

Tippet Rise Art Center, which has only been in operation for a few years now, is integrated into an 11,000 acre working ranch and is known for its large-scale art installations as well as world-class music performances. We visited there last weekend for an art tour and a concert. I was not aware until I saw it that one of the large art pieces was in fact a sculpture by Alexander Calder, on long-term loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. What a pleasant surprise that was (along with the smaller Calder mobile hanging in their Olivier Music Barn).

6 thoughts on “POTD: Calder in Montana”

  1. Molly Purrington

    Calder spelled right in body of text – not in headlines of photo. Sorry, my English major just comes out at the strangest times.

    And the photo is wonderful as is
    Calder.

    1. Fixed now. Thanks for keeping me on the grammatical straight and narrow Molly–always appreciated. (And I’m sure I make more errors than you and others point out to me!)

    2. When I think of Calder, I think of mobiles as well. But of course there is that iconic “Calder-red” sculpture Flamingo in downtown Chicago and the one at the National Gallery in DC that is more reminiscent of the one at Tippet Rise.

  2. Saw the article in Smithsonian about Tibbit’s. Wondered if you had made the pilgrimage there. Looks like a perfect setting for large pieces of that style- straight line sharp angled geometry against the waves and arcs of Big Sky landscapes. A very proportional but alien arrangement.

    1. Yes, a good location for large art installations. The scale of the are makes the large art pieces look small–until you’re up next to them and then they look, well, large. The Beartooth Mountains normally provide a great backdrop to the whole place but unfortunately when we were there the smoke from distant fires was so thick you could not even see the outline of the mountains. If we had gone a few days later it would have been perfect visibility. A day of rain and a shift in winds too I suppose has the air in this area look crystal clear all the way to the horizon. Nice to have Montana’s Big Sky back–for at least a while anyway.

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