KALICO invites artists to one-day painting challenge

KALICO Art Center and the Kalispell Downtown Association are offering a new art challenge for the Flathead Valley: The Clarence Rundell Challenge.

The center will celebrate Kalispell’s history and local art, honoring the legacy left behind by the artist.

Artist Clarence Rundell lived in Kalispell in the early part of the 20th century. In 1936, he entered a building on Main Street (where Rocky Mountain Outfitter is now located) and offered Tom Bogart and Arthur Hollensteiner, owners of what was the Eagle Shoe Store, a chance to get some murals on their walls. They settled on a series of Glacier Park landscapes based on photographs from the collection of T.R. Hileman, the official photographer of the Great Northern Railway.

In Rundell’s recounting of the experience, he said, “I painted one mural a day from the photographs. I got $25 a painting.” (In today’s money, that would be around $500.) These remarkably preserved works are the only paintings of Rundell’s left in the downtown area.

In reverence to Rundell completing a painting a day, KALICO invites selected artists to paint simultaneously during this one day challenge, anticipating many different landscape styles.

The event will take place in downtown Kalispell on Aug. 27. The call for painters is now open.

While paintings will be done from a reference photo of the original works, successful submissions will include all different landscape painting styles and artists are encouraged to make it their own.

Submissions are now open on KALICO’s website,

kalicoartcenter.org/call-for-artists-clarence-rundell

For more information, contact executive director, Jemina Watstein, at execdirector@kalicoartcenter.org or 406-471-2832.