BY Marge Dodge
Sponsored by Glacier Art Museum
- 42 watercolor, oil, acrylic, printmaking, ceramic, and encaustic
- Size: 19 ” x 15″ – 50″ x 38″
- Crates: 5 – 6, 15″ x 42″ x 54″ – 38″ x 46″ x 30″
- Availability: June 2027 – December 2029
- Booking Fee: 4 – 6 weeks $600/ 7 – 12 weeks $850
- Integrative Resources: Grandson in Missoula available to talks or lectures. Can lend additional works. Video/ Documentary available.
EXHIBITION DESCRIPTION
A Life in Studio: Marge Dodge consists of 40 original paintings, drawings, and sculptures, plus studio ephemera by the late artist Marge Dodge. This posthumous retrospective, organized in collaboration with her grandson Chris LaRoche, is the artist’s first museum show in 40 years. These works of various styles and mediums were created over the span of seven decades by Marge Dodge, a trailblazing woman artist and educator who created thousands of works in her lifetime. Yet, because she lived in a time when society often forgot or ignored women artists, she received little acclaim and many lay buried in her home, unseen for years.
Born Marguerite Gilbertson in Stoughton, Wisconsin, in 1918, Dodge received a scholarship to attend Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. There, she formed a four-artist partnership called the “Easelists” and traveled around the Midwest (unchaperoned!) painting portraits for the next decade. After marrying Dr. Rodney Dodge, a respected Entomologist (insects) in 1942, they moved to Georgia, where she studied at the Atlanta Art Institute in Savannah while raising their two children, Carole and Don.
In 1954, Marge Dodge moved to Missoula, MT, where she resumed her academic career at the University of Montana, receiving her BFA, BA, and MA in art. She became an integral part of the University’s Art Program, collaborating with notable Montana artists like Rudy Autio and Peter Voulkos. She also befriended fellow women artists Frances Senska, Jessie Wilber, and other artists of the Montana Modernist movement. She went on to serve as fine arts chairman of the Montana Institute of the Arts from 1964-65 and taught art at Missoula County High School.
Across decades and all of life’s seasons–motherhood, teaching, World Wars, her husband’s mental illness and untimely death, and historic cultural shifts in America–Marge Dodge continued her studio practice. Art became the constant and comfort in her life, and she continued to make work and share artmaking with others until her death in 2003. Her art and story need to be seen and shared with generations today to be appreciated, not only for their quality and mastery, but also for how she paved the way for women artists working in Montana today.
Also included are:
- Title panel and four text panels digital files
- Objects from the artist’s own studio to display for educational purposes: paint brushes, palett knife, paint pallet, pochade painting box, carved wood print block , collograph plate sample
- Individual wall labels for each artwork, with extended descriptions and text, digital file
- Photos from the artist’s life
- Page-by-Page of the Marge Dodge: A Life in Studio portfolio Video by Dodge Family Estate on the life and work of the artist : QR code and link to YouTube
MAGDA 