06/05/2026
Phillips Gallery, in collaboration with the descendants of Marge Dodge, is making a stunning collection of works from the Missoula-based artist available in an exhibit titled, “A Montana Modernist View of the West”. These works have not been available to the public for collecting since her passing over 20 years ago. Several pieces from this exhibit were recently showcased at the Glacier Art Museum in Kalispell and some pieces have not been on public view since the artist’s passing. The gallery is honored to be hosting these works and bring Marge Dodge’s work back to the forefront of Montana’s Modernist movement.
For Chris LaRoche, these paintings tell the story of his grandmother’s life. Marge was charismatic, a flamboyant artist and socialite, yet LaRoche felt he didn't understand the full picture. “This project is the culmination of a lifelong, personal quest to understand this enigmatic person in my life,” says LaRoche. “I knew the artist as my grandmother, and we were close, but she was still a mystery. Her art has helped unravel a complex character.”
Marge Dodge (1918-2003) born Marguerite Gilbertson in 1918 in Stoughton, Wisconsin, Marge won a scholarship after high school to attend Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. Now defunct, the school was then considered one of the top five art schools in the country. There she formed a four-artist partnership called the “Easelists” that traveled around the Midwest doing portraits. After marrying Rodney Dodge in 1942, she moved with him to the Deep South, studying art at the Atlanta Art Institute and raising two children in Savannah. In 1955, she brought her talent to Missoula where she resumed her academic career at the University of Montana, completing a BFA, a BA and MA in Art. For her thesis, she experimented with encaustic painting, a complex and technical process of painting with hot wax. She collaborated with Rudy Autio and Peter Voulkos to create fine art ceramic sculptures.
Marge’s art shifted seismically as her personal life slipped out of her control. In the 1950s, her husband Rodney was at the top of his field, the world’s leading authority in the field of entomology, as the years went by, he suffered from increasingly frequent mental health episodes. A late diagnosis of schizophrenia provided answers but no solutions. This turmoil in Marge’s personal life can be seen in the work she produced during her husband’s schizophrenic episodes. Marge was still creating art through all the challenges of her husband’s worsening schizophrenia; Marge turned to unorthodox colors and imaginary subjects to convey her emotions on the canvas. This was her language and coping skills until Rodney took his own life in 1973.
When LaRoche looks at the paintings from that time, he sees the specter of his grandfather. Those painful years haunted his grandmother’s work. “It’s not just her experimenting,” LaRoche said. “It’s her representing a difficult moment in her life.” In a recurring series featuring blue trees, Marge painted desolate backdrops and shadowy figures. LaRoche sees the hardship Marge experienced as she watched her husband slip away, but in the soft glow of the sun shining through abstract leaves, he also sees a quiet resilience.
In addition to the local art community in Missoula, Marge was active across the state. She was a founding member of the Montana Institute of the Arts and formed a fine arts group that encouraged and supported local artists. Her paintings have been selected to travel throughout the state as selections from the annual Festivals of the Arts. She had one-person invitational shows in Atlanta, the Hockaday Art Center in Kalispell, and Reeder’s Alley in Helena. Marge won several awards for her work and her work on historically significant places was acquired by the DeKalb County Library Art Gallery in Greater Atlanta. Several of her illustrations can be found in Missoula Valley History. Her paintings are in private and public collections in the Middle East and the United States.
Marge was a trailblazer for female artists in Montana, especially modernist artists at a time when few women did such things. Though not as widely known as some of her peers like Frances Senska and Jessie Wilbur, they were her contemporaries and friends. They were all instrumental in the foundation of the Montana Modernist Art movement,
Marge’s work stands out in it’s the absolute variety and breadth of the work. She literally did every medium possible in the world of visual arts; drawing, painting, watercolor, oil, pottery, encaustic, collage, landscapes and portraits and dark abstracts with deep personal and psychological significance to lite and whimsy cut outs and silhouettes. This diversity is met with technical mastery and sophistication of portraits that resemble photographs.
Phillips Gallery will be hosting the “A Montana Modernist View of the West” exhibit opens June 10th- June 27th.gallery is open Wednesday – Saturday 11:00 am to 5:00 pm and is in the Kalispell Center Mall. Call the gallery for more info at 406-309-2335
