The Life & Art of Fra Dana

with valerie hedquist | wednesday, march 26, 6p | doors open 5:30p

Join University of Montana Professor and Director of the School of Visual and Media Arts Valerie Hedquist on Wednesday, March 26 from 6-7 p.m. for The Life & Art of Fra Dana at the Jackson Hole History Museum. The event is free and open to the public; doors open at 5:30 p.m.

The illustrated talk will be followed by an audience Q&A, with copies of Hedquist’s book on Fra Dana available for purchase.

Fra Dana is one of five featured artists in the History Museum’s special exhibition “Women Artists of the American West: Trailblazers at the Turn of the 20th Century” presented in partnership with Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions (AWARE). 

Hedquist began researching Fra Dana’s life and art after arriving at the University of Montana where Dana left her art collection as a bequest in 1949. With Sue Hart, Hedquist wrote the 2011 book Fra Dana: American Impressionist in the Rockies, which was a 2012 HIgh Plains Book Award Finalist. 

 
“Researching her [Fra Dana] was one of the more fun things I’ve done in my life. Her life was a remarkable life and understanding her opens doors to understanding that whole era,” said Hedquist. 
 
As Hedquist writes in the book, “Fra Dinwiddie Dana’s life is a bundle of contradictions: a sophisticated world traveler and accomplished artist, and a Montana ranch wife; a dreamer and lover of beauty and the bookkeeper for the ranch; a women who enjoyed sliding down a muddy hill on her horse, but also loved her time in Paris and elsewhere visiting with her artistic and literary friends.”