By CHRISTENE MEYERS
Nearly a
century ago, Montana Avenue in Billings was as colorful and stylish a
place as a main street in any other booming American city - New York to
San Francisco.
Sure, there
were the stereotypical cowboys and Indians. But the eclectic mix of
characters included bankers and merchants with their high-fashion wives,
ranchers, rustlers, ladies of the evening and more authentic characters.
Stepping
lightly along the streets and sashaying through the shops of the emerging
town were elegantly dressed Victorian fashion plates, with the latest
skirts - flared and pleated. Men wore dapper suits, ties and expensive
hats.
Couples who
could afford it strolled the avenues in the latest serge, furs and patent
leather.
The working
class had class, too. Billings waiters wore the same snappy blacks and
whites as their counterparts in Chicago and St. Louis.
Two Montana
Avenue businessmen have collaborated to bring this little-known era to
life.
Painter W.A.
Guy and restaurateur Gene Burgad, both located in the heart of the
Billings Historic District on Montana Avenue, will unveil six large
canvases, "The Way We Were," at a Tuesday reception. The party will
celebrate a relatively undocumented and delightfully rich slice of life on
Montana Avenue.
Guy, a
fourth-generation Montanan, spent most of his adult life living, studying,
practicing law and painting in London and Paris. His French paintings have
garnered praise for their "joie de vivre" and sense of color and life,
which Guy finds has appealing parallels to "Victorian Montana Avenue."
In 1998, he
returned to Montana with his antique collector and marketing specialist
wife, Abby McClelland. They established Fine Things Art & Antiques at 2513
Montana Ave.
As a
frequent visitor to the nearby Rex, Guy, known as Guy McClelland in his
hometown of nearby Columbus, met Burgad, proprietor of the Rex.
Guy learned
of the history of the historic hotel, built in 1910 by Alfred Heimer, W.F.
"Buffalo Bill" Cody's chef for his Wild West Show. The site was visited,
some say, by a series of celebrities ranging from Franklin D. Roosevelt to
Amelia Earhart and other luminaries.
"We chatted
and visited and developed a friendship," Guy says. "Eventually, Gene asked
me if I would develop a series of paintings to bring the history of
Montana Avenue, the people of Billings and the Rex to life. I loved the
idea. It came together."
The
commission - in the high five figures, Guy says - was sealed about 10
months ago, and Guy began exhaustive research for his paintings.
"I used
everything I could get my hands on," he says. "If it was art and depicted
scenes from the period - about 1912 to 1917 - I gobbled it up."
Guy's Poly
Drive studio was soon a pleasant melange of vintage books, such as Sears'
"Everyday Fashions, 1909-1920" and "The Collector's Guide to W.F. Cody,
Buffalo Bill." The artist visited research centers, including Montana
Historical Society in Helena, Cody's Buffalo Bill Historical Center and
the Western Heritage Center and Parmly Billings Library in Billings.
He
interviewed historians and copied vintage pictures. Guy did extensive
research in newspaper archives, printing out microfilmed pages to inform
his sense of style and fashion and lend authenticity to his architectural
allusions.
"The art of
this era and vintage photos of saloon, street and dining scenes are
relatively rare," Guy says. "The art of the day, the paintings in vogue,
were Western art."
Burgad says
he wanted "art that would say something interesting about who we were, who
we are, while entertaining and exciting our customers and enhancing the
enjoyment of diners and visitors to the Rex."
In tandem
with the research, Guy drafted a series of sketches, subject to Burgad's
approval. The figures in the paintings are based on vintage photos of
Montana saloon scenes, grange dances and restaurants. They also draw from
Guy's whimsy and his European sense of color and the cabaret life.
In the
time-honored tradition of French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Guy
studies the "scene within the scene."
Lovers
flirt, old men talk shop and smoke, women visit, dogs wait for scraps,
ladies of the evening wait for customers. Outside, horses wait out the
rain, and the streets are a blur of light and shadow.
Guy's love
of vintage movies plays a part in the paintings, too. He watched old
movies. Fans of Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin will see them, too.
In one
painting, "Tall Tales at the Rex - 1912," Guy weaves Buffalo Bill into the
scene. "Folklore has it that he dined at the Rex late at night, held court
and told tales about his life," Guy explains.
Arrows fly
from the kitchen where the wait staff wants to close up and get some
sleep, but Cody talks on, about damsels in distress, his world tours,
buffalo hunts and his hobnobbing with European royalty. The Pony Express,
Hispanic settlers, Indian life and women all "perform" in the painting as
history meets mythology and Guy's imagination.
"It's
contemporary art of a historic time. "It's fact and a little fiction, with
a sense of humor," Guy says.
For a
detail in "Saturday Night at the Rex," Guy drew from a vintage portrait of
a man with an interesting visage, and reincarnated him as a disinterested
patron while others gossip and cavort.
There are
plenty of other inventions. Look closely in "Tall Tales ..." and you'll
see a 21st-century face. Burgad is the patient waiter, keeping the
restaurant open late for a good customer.
"I thought
it would be a kick to put Gene in the paintings," Guy says of his "Burgad
cameo." A la director Alfred Hitchcock in his movies, Burgad takes a turn
in three of the paintings.
Another
painting, "Full Inspection at the Rex - 1912," was inspired by a 1912
photo of a Montana Avenue eatery's staff inspection.
But, to
translate the Midget Restaurant street scene to a successful painting, the
artist needed some drama, a focal point. Invoking the muse, Guy added a
stylishly dressed vintage lady, inspired by the Sears catalog. He gave her
a leash and an aristocratic dog.
The title
takes on double meaning.
Guy, 60,
took his painter's pseudonym from initials proposed by his four children.
The W.A. Guy stands for "What A Guy," says the man christened Arden but
known since childhood by the nickname, Guy.
During the
painting process, Guy's father, Riley McClelland, died. Guy's mother,
Maxine, survives in Billings.
"That was a
rough patch losing dad last October," he says. "But the painting was good
for me. It excited me, brought me focus. I often painted from 9 a.m. until
2 a.m."
His
reference books, photo copies and magazines are dotted with fingerprints
of the paintings' blue hues, mauves, reds and golds.
Internationally known for his work, Guy hopes to complete other large
canvases for other key parts of the Historic District. Plans are in the
talking stages for a series at the Billings Depot.
One of the
new Rex paintings depicts the Depot, framed by a young woman from Chicago,
just off the train and in need of refreshment, meeting her first Montana
cowboy.
Guy, a
regular at the Rex, has brought the restaurant and Montana Avenue new
life, "with humor and imagination," Burgad says, adding, "His
tongue-in-cheek history of the Rex adds a new dimension to what we do. It
enlarges the concept of warm, Western hospitality."
