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Local artist recalls Pollock, Cézanne influences and 1958 Lewistown bank mural
Summary
A resident artist described how the local landscape and artists Jackson Pollock and Paul Cézanne shaped his work, recounted painting a 4-foot-by-36-foot mural of snowy mountains for a Lewistown bank in 1958–59, and explained his techniques using cattle markers and pencil finishes.
Commenter, an artist and resident, described how the local landscape shaped his work and recounted painting a 4-foot-by-36-foot mural of snowy mountains for a Lewistown bank in 1958–59.
The speaker said the landscape — “rocks and hillsides and bushes and a few pine trees” — influenced his art and credited Jackson Pollock and Paul Cézanne as important influences. “Because these are these forms, I was born and raised with these forms. And thank God that Jackson Pollock came along and exposed me to them,” the speaker said.
The artist framed his approach as rooted in limitation and repetition, saying, “A man's limitation is a genius,” and describing a process driven by contrast — of form, size, color, texture and direction — and by what he called “the happy accident.” He told the meeting he often began marks with cattle markers and finished works with pencil: “None of my artwork exists. It was finished off by a pencil. But it saved my life,” he said.
On the Lewistown mural, the speaker said the town bank remodeled space for a mural and accepted his sketch; he described the finished piece as four feet high and 36 feet long and said it depicted “snowy mountains, 800 square miles.” He placed the work around 1958–59 and said it remains on display in Fergus County.
He also described an artistic trajectory from abstract experiments through a pause around 1958, then a return to realistic watercolors, sculpture and landscapes. He said he made signs and other practical work early in his career to support himself: “This is how I made enough money out here to be a farmer,” he said.
The presentation included technical remarks about composition: the vertical suggests stability, the horizontal suggests rest, and angled lines suggest movement. The speaker said he often limited himself to simple geometric forms — rectangle, circle and triangle — and used contrasts and direction to build designs.
Less central comments included anecdotes about fishing and a named person who appears as a family or household member (Elvio) and an offhand remark that he had taught himself many of these design principles.
The remarks were a first-person presentation of an individual artist’s influences, methods and a local mural commission; no municipal action, funding decision or formal policy was discussed.
