Old Missoula

University’s Book Has Remarkable Painting

Montana Sentinel Will Contain Drawing of Mountain By Artist Paxson.

A sketch by E. S. Paxson will be the principal feature of the University of Montana’s year book, the Sentinel, this spring. Mr. Paxson, whose ability as an artist needs no comment, gave to the Sentinel, through Miss Merle Kettlewell, a picture of the university campus site, drawn in 1878. Flanking this picture will be a photograph of the campus taken last winter by R. H. Mackay.

The combination of the two pictures effectively shows the contrast between the Montana of a generation ago and the state of today. So accurate was Mr. Paxson’s sketch that the photographer was able to locate the exact spot from which the drawing was made, a point almost at the gateway of the university campus. As a result one picture could almost be placed over the other without confliction save in the details of the foreground.

The Paxson painting shows Mount Sentinel in the background, with the position of the gullies, trees and rocks so exact that the sketch agrees in every detail with [the] photograph taken a few months ago. In the foreground, under the shadow of the mountain which has watched without change to itself the panorama of the centuries, a band of Indians is in camp. The camp is small, typical of those which used to be so common about Missoula. The figures are lifelike and the whole picture is characteristic of the man who has succeeded so well in conveying the spirit of pioneer days to his canvases.

The photograph shows the site as it looks today, with the university buildings standing where the Indians camped less than half a century ago. The combination of the two pictures gives the Sentinel a unique and pleasing feature.

The pictures will be printed one above the other on heavy paper. Separate copies of the combined pictures will be printed, the managers expect. The junior class, upon which the responsibility for the publication of the book rests, does not expect to break even on the venture. The situation will be relieved, it is hoped, by the sale of copies of these remarkable pictures, which should be favorably received by local people.

The article above appeared in The Missoulian on May 1, 1914.

A link to the 1915 Sentinel Yearbook appears below. The large painting and photo appear on two separate pages of the publication – see pages 74 & 75.

If separate copies or prints of the combined photos were ever made, they would be a valuable commodity in today’s antiquity market. Also, a re-publication of these would surely earn the copyright holder a tidy sum in today’s world.

University of Montana Sentinel – 1914

Paxson Painting appears on Pages 74 & 75 of the 1915 Sentinel Yearbook – link below:

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=sentinel

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349148561