New book showcases artwork of 'Van Gogh of Montana'

In the swirled clouds, deliberate brush strokes and vivid hues, a hint of “Vinnie” shows up in a lot of James Bakke’s paintings.

Vinnie is Bakke’s term of endearment for Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh. The longtime Whitefish artist has always felt a sort of kinship with Van Gogh and explains his passion for Van Gogh’s work in a new coffee-table book, “James R. Bakke, Montana Artist,” written and compiled by Donna Shane Hopkins of Whitefish and published by Scott Company Publishing of Kalispell.

“The combination of color and emotion in [Van Gogh’s] work has never been matched in the century since,” Bakke, 80, said in the book as he told about his painting of a sunflower that honors the Dutch artist. The sunflower was a recurring motif in Van Gogh’s work.

“My own work has been greatly influenced by my idol, mentor and old school mate,” he said in the book, adding tongue-in-cheek: “Yes, Vinnie and I went to school together in Holland back in the fifties — the 1850s!”

Hopkins, who has known Bakke since 1979 when she moved to Whitefish for a time to live with her grandmother, said she felt it was important to include Bakke’s own voice and description of his paintings in the book.

Hopkins and her grandmother, Elizabeth Luding Hopkins, along with Bakke and his mother, Serena,  took several day trips to Glacier National Park that summer of ’79.

“James, always with his camera, would take dozens of photos before the end of the day,” she recalled in the book. “I knew he was an artist, but had no sense of the magnitude and diversity of his work, which grew to extraordinary proportions over the years.”

When Hopkins retired and moved back to Whitefish in 2005, she began to discover just how expansive Bakke’s work was. She spent five years mulling the idea of a book, then realized time was of the essence to tell her friend’s story.

Bakke’s first paintings were done in crayon — Crayolas, as he likes to call them — as he grew up on a wheat farm near Gildford, in the wide open spaces of Northcentral Montana.

“The youngest of nine children,

James was more interested in drawing pictures of the ‘family estate’ than preparing for the slaughter of the cattle they had raised,” Hopkins said.

In 1947 the Bakke family moved to Whitefish, where James graduated from high school in 1949 and then went to work for the railroad like so many of his peers from that era.

A photograph taken in 1951 shows a smiling Bakke; he declared it was “the best summer of my life” because he finally had a camera to photograph the old family homestead, Glacier Park and other places dear to him.

Bakke completed a correspondence course through the Famous Artists School of Westport, Conn., but otherwise is self-taught.

The Crayola, pen-and-ink and charcoal drawings of his youth gave way to splendidly colored oil paintings, some measuring 4 feet across.

He took an afternoon shift on the railroad “precisely so I could work on my paintings in the mornings,” he said at a recent book-signing event at Grouse Mountain Lodge. “Mornings really are the best for painting because my eyes are fresh and I feel rested.”

By applying layers of thick paint to create flowers, brush and trees, Bakke was able to create a three-dimensional feel in many of his paintings.

One of his last oils, completed in 2002, exemplifies that three-dimensional effect and graces the cover of Hopkins’ book. Called “Prairie Shipwreck,” it depicts the old Bakke homestead, with tattered buildings languishing on the prairie.

“It evokes the once busy, hard-working and happy lives begun at this hallowed hill,” he wrote.

Bakke’s work was wide-ranging, and not confined to landscapes. One section of the book displays a collection of classmate portraits done from the 1950s through the early 1970s.

Another section of the book is dedicated to paintings of Bakke’s cats.

“My cat family dates back to when I was only 5,” he noted in the book, remembering how he discovered a mother cat in the hayloft at a neighbor’s home. “From those kittens there have been countless descendants over the past 75 years. They are not just cats. They are the Aristocats!”

At the recent book signing, Bakke marveled at the interest still shown in his work.

“This is unbelievable,” he said. “I never expected to have a bunch of my pictures together for a retrospective. This is fun. It’s like finally getting to see my old friends (the paintings).

“When I look around this room I am feeling a lot of gratitude. I feel like I was able to create something that will last. This reminds me of a time when I was at the National Gallery in London. I was looking at a 400-year-old Rubens. My paintings are going to last a lot longer than I will.”

Hopkins included in her book reflections written by Bakke at age 70, and again at age 80, that explain his yearning to capture life as he sees it.

At 70 he wrote: “I begin to understand very well what the great Vincent Van Gogh meant in a letter from his famous ‘Yellow House’ in Arles in the south of France to his brother Theo in Paris in the summer of 1888. He wrote, to paraphrase: ‘It is actually one’s duty to paint the rich and magnificent aspects of life. Color in painting is like enthusiasm in life. We are in need of gayety and happiness, of hope and love.’

“The more old, ugly, crippled, ill, poor I get, the more I want to take my revenge by producing a brilliant color, well arranged — resplendent...” he said.

At 80 he mused, “Who would have imagined [10 years later] that I would still be around to seek my revenge! I have become older, more crippled, but not poorer. I can still take pleasure in what I was able to create in my younger years and the memories of those hikes through Glacier Park, as well as my beloved prairie home in Gildford...Though I can no longer paint, I am able to look through those prints and remember the dazzling view in every direction ... And I believe my old friend, Vinnie, or his brother Theo, would say, ‘The past was glorious but the present lives and breathes — the colors more vibrant and the memories will dazzle forever.’”

“James R. Bakke, Montana Artist,” is available at area museums and bookstores, or can be purchased online at www.jamesbakke.com. Hopkins may be reached by email at donnahop@aol.com.

Copies of the book also will be for sale at a book signing from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, July 7, at the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell.

Bakke’s paintings will be displayed at Glacier Bank in Whitefish, at the main bank downtown and branch office on U.S. 93, during July and August.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.

Photographer Brenda Ahearn contributed to this story.