Monte Dolack

Monte A. Dolack (born May 23, 1950) is an American graphic artist who lives in Missoula, Montana. Frommer's called him "one of the best-known artists in Montana." He works primarily in watercolor, acrylic paint, poster art, and lithographs. Dolack's work often features whimsical animals in both a natural and artificial setting (such as a suburban living room), and has a worldwide following. Dolack is considered a key figure in the visual arts of the American West.

Widely known in his home state of Montana, He graduated from Great Falls High School in 1968. In his senior year, Dolack was chosen to design the cover of the GFHS yearbook, The Roundup. His design was a then-fashionable contemporary art work (similar to a Jackson Pollock image) which a teacher in 2006 later described as "flat-out ugly". Dolack married Linda LaFond in 1970, but they divorced in 1972. By 1997, original Crystal Theater posters were collector's items. Dolack created the poster to commemorate the day the Missoula City Council voted to ban nuclear facilities within the city limits. Beginning in 1978, Dolack had a studio located at 132 W. Front Street in Missoula. A 48-page color collection of his poster art, Catalog of Posters & Prints: Crystal Theatre, was published in 1982.

Dolack married artist Mary Beth Percival on May 11, 1984. Dolack's father, Michael, died the same year. In 1990, Dolack donated a watercolor ("Restoring the Wolf to Yellowstone") depicting wolves looking over a plain of geysers and hot mud springs to the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, with sales of the poster going to a fund to compensate local ranchers for the loss of livestock incurred due to the reintroduction of grey wolves into Yellowstone National Park. Although the fund also received donations from other foundations and proceeds from a benefit concert by rock artist James Taylor, the majority of the fund's proceeds came from sales of Dolack's art. The National Park Service in April 1990 banned the sale of the posters in Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.

By 1993, his work had been shown in "hundreds of galleries, including some in Japan, Germany and France". The California clothing company Patagonia sold copies of the print through its stores and catalogs.

The next year, Dolack's "Heron Blues" (a poster primarily in blue hues depicting a blue heron flying down a Montana city street at night) was included in the poetic collection Vagrant Grace. In 2000, Dolack painted a acrylic work, "A History Lesson," which depicted a full-grown American bison standing in a schoolroom which is decorated with pictures, symbols, blackboard writing, and other images important to Montana history. The work hung in the C.M. Russell Museum, one of the nation's premier Western art museums, before being donated to Great Falls High School. The same year, Farcountry Press published a retrospective book, Monte Dolack, The Works, featuring his work.

In December 2001, Dolack created a new work, the "Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery at the White Cliffs of the Missouri," and donated it to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center near Black Eagle Dam on the Great Falls of the Missouri River. Posters of the work were used to raise money for the center, but it was sold for an undisclosed sum to First Interstate BancSystem three months later. The showings were so popular and gained such notice in the worldwide art community that showing of Dolack's work in New Zealand were also arranged in 2004.

Dolack was given a second chance to design his high school's yearbook in 2006. For the yearbook's 100th edition, Dolack contributed his recently completed "Montana Power"—which depicts a bison in a field of dry grass, with Square Butte in the background. Two years later, Dolack's 2000 work, "A History Lesson" (now retitled "Montana History Lesson") was used on the front cover of the history book Montana: Stories of the Land, published by the Montana Historical Society.

On April 6, 2009, Dolack suffered a serious heart attack. Taken to St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences Center, Dolack underwent open-heart surgery, and a stent implanted in an artery to improve blood supply to his heart.

In 2011, in celebration of the International Year of Forests, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations planted 70 living trees in the Palais des Nations building in Geneva, Switzerland. In front of the temporary forest, the two organizations exhibited a large number of Dolack works which featured forests. The exhibition, "The Art of Trees—A Forest Gallery", also includes displays of innovative wood products and artwork made of wood.

Dolack says he has a large library of artistic reference works which he uses to improve his technique and to gain inspiration. Dolack's work also exhibits "wildly inventive color". – A poster of a mother bear lying on a couch in a fisherman's cabin (having eaten the fisherman), while her two cubs explore the cabin. "Cabin Fever" (1997) – A poster depicting fish swimming into a fisherman's cabin through an open window. "Harvest Time" (2000) – A poster depicting pheasants, quail, ducks, and other birds feasting on a basket of bread left in an open window.

Awards and honors Dolack's work won "Best of Show" from the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators in 1991.

The Monte Dolack Scholarship Fund at Great Falls High School is named for him.

The westslope cutthroat trout from Dolack's 1986 "Blackfoot River" is featured on a Trout Unlimited specialty license plate issued by the state of Montana.

Other roles Dolack has served on the board of directors of the Montana Arts Council and the University of Montana Fine Art Advisory Board, and was a delegate from Montana on the Japan Economic Trade Organization in 1995. He also sat on the advisory board of the Big Hole River Foundation in 1999, and has been a member of the board of directors of the Montana chapter of Trout Unlimited since 1995.

Dolack is a founding member of the Japan Club.

A Democrat, Dolack is an avid fly fisherman, hiker, and bird watcher.