The Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center (HRC), which houses one of the largest collections of historic and cultural artifacts in the National Park Service system, welcomes a new art exhibit this summer season. The collection pays homage to Hudson River School masters Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and Sandford Robinson Gifford, and will include bronze sculptures of the three artists by Greg Wyatt. The exhibition will be on display through September 28, 2018.

Moran, Bierstadt, and Gifford are considered some of the most influential late 19th-century American landscape artists. The artistic works of Thomas Moran, in particular, were instrumental in persuading Congress to pass the Yellowstone Park Act — resulting in the creation of Yellowstone National Park. All three artists were members of the Hudson River School — America’s first true artistic fraternity. Hudson River School paintings depict peaceful American landscapes, and often illustrate common 19th-century American themes of discovery, exploration, and settlement.

Sculptor Greg Wyatt was nurtured in the artistic tradition of his native Hudson River Valley at an early age by his father, Professor William Stanley Wyatt, painter and fine arts professor at Columbia University and the City College of the City University of New York. Greg Wyatt’s style merges realistic images inspired by his readings of the Great Books content with creative masses of form, space and energy. His work appears in collections across the country and around the world, from sculpture gardens and museum collections to state and private collections.

The Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center houses the park’s museum collection, historic archives, herbarium, and research library. The collection includes several million records, a research library with more than 20,000 publications, and more than 720,000 museum items, from historic vehicles to original art prints from Thomas Moran. The facility is located just outside Yellowstone’s North Entrance in Gardiner, Montana.

The exhibition will be on display from May 17 – September 28, 2018. The public is welcome and encouraged to tour the exhibit Monday – Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.