Michele Corriel is the author of Montana Modernists: Shifting Perceptions of Western Art, focused on the modernist art movement in Montana and six artists who came to define the art landscape for generations to come.
Michele explores Montana as an isolated, beautiful, and complex landscape that inspired the Montana modernist movement, as well as the artistic and teaching lineage and community of artists that included Gennie and Robert DeWeese, Isabelle Johnson, Frances Senska, Bill Stockton, Jessie Wilber, and Marguerite Wildehain.
The book was awarded twice at the 2023 High Plains Book Awards for best art and photography book and received the Big Sky Award for overall best book by a Montana author. Although the six artists in the book are deceased, interest in them is alive and well, according to Corriel. She curated a show based on her book for the Yellowstone Art Museum and will do the same for the Holter Museum of Art in Helena in 2024.
Michele holds a master’s in art history and a PhD in American Studies/American Art from Montana State University, Bozeman. She has written about art for the last 17 years and is on the National Advisory Board for the Bozeman Art Museum.
