|
Return to Permanent Collection
Page
|
 |
Leonard
Lopp (1888
- 1974)
Harry Leonard Lopp was born May 1, 1888,
near Highmore, South Dakota. Lopp was raised on a cattle
ranch and attended nearby Canton and Elk Point schools where
he showed early signs of artistic talent by drawing
everything around him. Later he studied art under Prof. P.J.
Rennings at Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska, and privately
with Prof. John Updyke and Robert Wood. On July 1, 1918, he was married to Margaret Booth of
Colorado Springs, Colorado. Together they painted and traveled over much
of the U.S., Canada and Alaska. During much of
the '20's Lopp was staff artist for the Hudson's Bay Company of Canada and
exhibited from Winnipeg to Vancouver.
|
| Contracts with the Elks and
Moose Lodges took them north to Alaska for several summers. In 1928 they
established art studios and a home for his parents at Seaside and
Portland, Oregon. The depression forced the closing of the galleries and a
move to Great Falls, Montana in 1936. Lopp was later appointed staff artist for
the Glacier National Park Company, exhibiting every summer at Many Glacier
Hotel until 1941 and again in 1960. National art recognition was achieved in 1941 when Lopp was invited to New
York for the one-man show at the Milch Gallery and a concurrent showing at
the Metropolitan. During their two-month stay in New York, they were the
guests of geologist and glacier specialist Dr. and Mrs. Jim Dyson of Yale
University with whom the Lopps had spent many days hiking on the trails in
Glacier Park. In 1944, Lopp designed and built his own lodge on the west shore of Flathead Lake. He handpicked every log in the
chalet from standing timber. This home became a center for the arts and a
favorite stopping place for their many friends and fellow artists such as
Roland Gissing of Canada, Red Skelton, and Dave Rubinoff, a musician.
Additional shows followed at the Pressmen's club in
Spokane in 1951, and he won the Premier Award, Fine Arts Department, of the
Montana State Fair at Great Falls in 1961. Major commissions were from
former President Harry S. Truman;
FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover; the Lions International President; the
restoration of several C.M. Russell paintings in Great Falls; and
collections for the Conrad National Bank of Kalispell and the Bank of
Idaho at Boise. Failing health and age forced a move to Kalispell where he
passed away in 1974. His passion for the beauty of Glacier Park and his
ability to record it on canvas has secured a permanent position as one of
the great artists of Montana and the West.
|
|