Wilma Lucile Van Slyck (Ohio, 1898-1982), oil on panel painting depicting the St. Mary River in Glacier National Park, flowing through boulders surrounded by evergreens. Signed lower right: "L Van Slyck." Location inscribed en verso: "St. Mary just above falls / 5 miles above / Going-to-the-Sun-Camp / Glacier National Park." Panel size: 16" H x 20" W. Framed in a gold tone hand carved wood frame. Artist Biography (excerpted from "A Timeless Legacy: Women Artists of Glacier National Park," Hockaday Museum of Art, copyright 2015): "Born in 1898 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Lucile Van Slyck began to spend summers in Montana when she was a teenager. Van Slyck could be considered the fearless archetype of the early female artists who came to paint in Glacier National Park. In the spring of 1930, while the Park was still under several feet of snow, an Ohio newspaper reported, 'Lucile Van Slyck, a young woman artist of Cincinnati, Ohio, astounded the hard-boiled Rocky Mountain natives by packing in alone, penetrating the Many Glacier region where she set up camp with the winter still upon this mountain country.'
The article stated that Van Slyck went into the country light; carrying, besides her tent and a month's provisions, only her easel, brushes, paper and watercolors. Upon hearing that a woman was heading into the region alone, Park Superintendent J. R. Eakin immediately dispatched a ranger to watch over her. The ranger, with the usual gallantry of the Westerner, followed Miss Van Slyck's snowshoe tracks. The article continued, "Upon coming on her, he was surprised to find she already had set up camp and started a cheerful fire going, with coffee nearly ready."
When asked why she arrived so early in the year, Lucile stated that she simply wanted to paint the snow contrasting with the dark waters, just as the ice opened up.
Van Slyck pursued her art for five years at the Cincinnati Art Academy. Later, she studied at The National Academy of Design in New York City and at the Lewis Comfort Tiffany Foundation at Oyster Bay, New York.
In 1930 at the Presbyterian Church in Kalispell, Montana, Van Slyck held an exhibition of her Native American portraits and landscape paintings. Her work in the show included Heaven's Peak, Mt. Canon, The Garden Wall, Granite Park to Indian Pass from the top of Mt. Brown, and several views of McDonald Lake. Also displayed in the Kalispell show was a life-size rendering of Emma Last Star and her daughter. After this first public showing, Van Slyck accompanied the paintings to exhibitions in the East.
A Montana trip was always an exciting challenge for Van Slyck. She hiked with a forty-five pound pack on her back, camped alone and split her own wood. She often felt the journey was more of an accomplishment than her painting. The Blackfeet tribe adopted her as a member. Lucile was given the name Ko-ko-me-kee-sum, which translated means, "Princess Moonlight Woman". "

PROVENANCE: The Estate of Carl Klein, Brentwood, Tennessee.

CONDITION: Overall very good condition with light localized surface crazing.