History museum debuts two new exhibits
Photographer Jeff Corwin is being featured in a solo exhibit “Landscapes of the American West” at the Northwest Montana History Museum. (Courtesy photo)
The Northwest Montana History Museum this week opens two new exhibits.
Photographer Jeff Corwin will be featured in a solo exhibit “Landscapes of the American West.” The opening reception for the exhibit will be 5 to 7 p.m. on Dec. 15, at 124 2nd Ave. E., Kalispell.
Corwin is a fine art photographer living in Bozeman. After 40 plus years as a successful award-winning commercial photographer, Corwin turned his discerning eye to fine art photography. Of this body of work, Corwin states, “My images look the way they do because of what is inside of me. There are a lot of ‘pretty’ landscapes where I go, certainly in Montana. I gravitate to the bleak, lonely, and isolated because of what resonates inside me. It’s what I see because it’s what I feel.”
Over the years, Corwin has taken photos hanging out of a helicopter over the Thames River, in the jungles of Borneo, on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Italian aircraft carrier Garibaldi while photographing Harrier Jet missions over the Tyrrhenian Sea for Rolls-Royce. He has done photo shoots in 41 countries and five continents, including in Moscow with two retired KGB agents with AK-47’s accompanying him. Assignments included portraits of famous faces, including Bill Gates, Cesar Chavez, Ray Bradbury, LA Police Chief Daryl Gates, Michael Graves and Vanna White and photos for corporate clients like Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Boeing, Lockheed, AT&T, Time and Life. His hottest photo shoot: Abu Dhabi at 114 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest: Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada at minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
The exhibition will be on display from Dec. 15 to April 30, 2023.
The second exhibit entitled “The Way We Wore” represents the latest in the “10 Items” installations for which curators take a roundabout look at the collection and present a select group to illustrate a certain theme.
Volunteers Judy Elwood and Sharon Bristow and board member Jane Renfrow will put on display a selection of uniforms connected to the Flathead Valley.
The uniforms prepared for the exhibit range from a 1950s Boy Scout uniform and a nurse’s cape and cap, to school gym clothing and a band uniform from the Kalispell Fire Department.
Also included is a ceremonial coat that belonged to Judge Joseph E. Rockwood, a member of the Patriarchs Militant of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Rockwood served two terms as a judge in the 11th Judicial District, then two terms in the Montana House of Representatives. His 1920s home, on the National Register of Historic Places, stands at 835 First Ave. E in Kalispell.
For more information call the museum at 406-756-8381 or visit www.nwmthistory.org.