Peterson, Larry Len

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Peterson, Larry Len

PERSONAL:

Born in Plentywood, MT.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Sisters, OR.

CAREER:

Writer, art historian. Lectures on art and art history, primarily in the western United States. Formerly chairman of the National Advisory Board to the C.M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, MT.

WRITINGS:

Charles M. Russell, Legacy: Printed and Published Works of Montana's Cowboy Artist, Twodot Books (Helena, MT), 1999.

Philip R. Goodwin: America's Sporting and Wildlife Artist, Settlers West Galleries (Hayden, ID), 2001.

The Call of the Mountains: The Artists of Glacier National Park, Settlers West Galleries (Tucson, AZ), 2002.

L.A. Huffman: Photographer of the American West, Settlers West Galleries (Tucson, AZ), 2003.

Author of numerous other volumes, including A Most Desperate Situation: Frontier Adventures of a Young Scout, 1858-1864, 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

Larry Len Peterson is a writer, lecturer, and art historian with a particular interest in and appreciation for the western United States. His personal art collection focuses on western art and art from Glacier National Park; it includes books and paper memorabilia as well as original art. He has served as chairman of the National Advisory Board of the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana, and has donated art to both the Russell Museum and to the Montana Historical Society in Helena. Peterson has written numerous books on the art of the American West, nature, and wildlife. In Charles M. Russell, Legacy: Printed and Published Works of Montana's Cowboy Artist, he looks at the artist's work and versatility, addressing the way he took his original art and recycled the themes as illustrations in books, magazines, and newspapers. Anne Marie Lane, in a review for Library Journal, called the volume "an important addition to other recent books on Western arts."

L.A. Huffman: Photographer of the American West collects some of the best photographs taken over the course of Huffman's career, including both prints and work done for book covers and postcards. Peterson provides extensively researched text for the volume. Allen M. Jones, in a review for the New West Web site, remarked on the numerous images and their subjects, stating: "Peterson's text leads us through these subjects, taking the time to explain the technical processes behind the images." Jones concluded that the work was an "accessible and artful documentation of an iconic era."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bookwatch, January, 2006, review of L.A. Huffman: Photographer of the American West.

Library Journal, April 1, 1999, Anne Marie Lane, review of Charles M. Russell, Legacy: Printed and Published Works of Montana's Cowboy Artist, p. 92.