JACKSON, Wyo. — Impressionist painter Fra Dana travelled at least nine times to study art in Europe from the ranch she managed with her husband Edwin on the Wyoming/Montana border. With about 80,000 head of cattle the Dana’s ranch was one of the largest in the nation pre-WWI. Painting in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Dana often had to balance her active ranch life with her artistic pursuits. 

Join University of Montana Art History Professor 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 Fra Dana: American Impressionist in the Rockies available for purchase. 

  • Fra Dana. Breakfast, oil on canvas, no date. Courtesy of Montana Museum of Art and Culture.
  • Fra Dana. On the Window Seat, oil on canvas, no date. Courtesy of Montana Museum of Art and Culture.
  • Fra Dana portrait. Courtesy of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture.
  • Fra Dana walking up steps. Courtesy of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture.

Fra Dana is one of five featured artists in the Jackson Hole 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). 

Art Professor and Fra Dana biographer Valerie Hedquist. Courtesy of Valerie Hedquist.

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. 

Book cover of Fra Dana: American Impressionist in the Rockies written by Sue Hart.

“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. 

With Sue Hart, Hedquist wrote the 2011 book Fra Dana: American Impressionist in the Rockies, which was a 2012 High Plains Book Award Finalist.  

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.” 

For more information, visit jacksonholehistory.org or call the History Museum at 307.733.2414.