Arts-Entertainment
The Park County Council for the Arts (PCCArts) proudly awarded Parks Reece the distinction of Inaugural Artist Laureate for 2025. PCCArts also recognized the late Russell Chatham as the 2025 Legacy Laureate. Parks, as well as Russell’s daughter Lea, received a beautiful leather award ribbon designed by Chase DeForest. Parks also received a $5,000 monetary award.
The selection committee, made up of PCCArts and community members, reviewed many strong nominations and chose Parks Reece for his extraordinary contributions spanning four decades of artistic excellence, his service to the arts community, and his work’s deep connection to place. As Artist Laureate, Parks will serve as an artistic ambassador on behalf of Park County for the next year.
Parks’ work is characterized by whimsical, irreverent, and decidedly rural subject matter, executed with masterful use of color and draftsmanship. A self-described surrealist, his lithographs, paintings, and public murals demonstrate technical mastery paired with playful yet grounded vision that captures the essence of Montana life.
His leadership as former Executive Director of the Danforth Gallery transformed Livingston into an arts destination, creating the beloved Main Street Show and establishing the vibrant creative community that defines Park County today. Parks was at the forefront of our vibrant arts community that forms a critical segment of Park County’s economic and cultural life. For 35 years, Parks has provided free art classes to students of all ages while partnering with countless nonprofit organizations to raise funds through art auctions.
Since arriving in the late 1970s, Parks has become synonymous with Park County’s artistic identity and his nationally recognized artwork make him an ideal representative of Park County’s creative spirit worldwide. He has collaborated with the
Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition, the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness Foundation (he created a top-selling specialty license plate, helping preserve our natural heritage through art), the Livingston/Park County Public Library, the Livingston Songwriter Festival, and other local organizations.
Parks painted public murals—from Lodge Grass (where he taught high school art to Indigenous students) to Pine Creek School and Livingston’s very own Civic Center. This 48’W x 17’H project, designed by Parks and painted by artists and community members, was created in conjunction with a Chinese group that caught Parks’ attention. He traveled to China several times with former Ambassador Max Baucus, and became a registered cultural liaison with the Chinese Government.
PCCArts also recognized the late Russell Chatham as the 2025 Legacy Laureate for his transformative impact on American landscape painting and Montana’s artistic heritage. With over 400 one-man exhibitions spanning five decades, Chatham earned acclaim from notable collectors, including art critic Robert Hughes, Paul Allen, and Jack Nicholson. As one of the world’s foremost lithographers, his luminous landscape paintings captured the fleeting light and atmosphere of the natural world, particularly Paradise Valley. His evocative depictions of landscapes in transition—during weather changes, sunsets, and storms—without focusing on grandiose mountain peaks, defined a generation’s visual understanding of the American West.
As one critic noted, “As painter Albert Bierstadt gave a nation its vision of Yellowstone, Russell gave us the rest of Montana.” Chatham’s legacy endures through his profound influence on contemporary landscape painting and his role in establishing Montana as a major center for Western art.