We are thrilled to announce that renowned Montana painter, Clyde Aspevig, is working on an original artwork for Opera Montana's world premiere of A River Runs Through It. The painting will be donated to Opera Montana, and will be used as the basis for the poster art that is eventually created for the world premiere, scheduled for September of 2026.

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About the Artist

“Landscape is not just everything visible to the eye. It also includes all the inner visions of the
soul.” Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
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It is not necessary to adhere to an esoteric religion to hold the conviction that all things are
animate, unfolding their own histories for those patient enough to observe. Montana
landscape painter Clyde knows this. He knows from long and close familiarity with mountain
and shores, timbers and stones, and water and snow that every day of observation is like
turning the page to discover more of the epic journey the land takes through the seasons and
through time. His process is studied and contemplative, in step with the cadence of nature, and
the resulting paintings also invite a slow, appreciative gaze.
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It would be remiss not to draw attention to Clyde Aspevig’s finely honed sense of place. He
possesses an ability to call forth the scent of the air and the color of the light in each of his
chosen locales and, in particular, the American West, with a forcefulness that collectors and
critics alike have noted. As so many before have observed, to know a place and then see an
Aspevig painting of it is to experience a jolt of recognition at a visceral level. Nowhere is this
perfect pitch more evident than in his paintings of the coulees, peaks, creeks, and plains of his
home ground in Montana. Peter Hassrick refers to Aspevig’s “wedding of the spirit of place
with aesthetic harmonies and personal temperament.” It makes perfect sense that home in its
purest sense should inspire some of Aspevig’s finest work. It also follows that, knowing the
land as he does, he should wish not to lose it. Both through his art and in other ways, he works
with an almost missionary zeal to share the land, preserve it, and help others see what he sees.
He would be the first to say that his paintings should be but a gateway to each viewer’s
personal communion with land itself.
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Excerpt from Robyn G. Peterson’s essay “The Stone’s Story”
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Clyde Aspevig was born and raised in Rudyard, Montana. He currently lives outside Bozeman,
Montana with his artist wife, Carol Guzman.

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