Derick Wycherly, a printmaker who grew up in Montana, said it feels full circle to be back in his hometown with a job that calls for the unusual skills he’s learned and have them “tested hard,” he said.
Derick Wycherly, an artist from Rocky Boy who specializes in printmaking and papermaking, is the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s new associate curator. Wycherly recently helped curate a new gallery exhibition titled “Gates of Friendship: Recent Acquisitions of Asian and Asian-American Art,” which is on display at the MMAC’s Batts Gallery.
This month, he was named associate curator for the Montana Museum of Art and Culture. He returned last year to be its collections manager, a role he’ll still hold, helping guide the mammoth project of moving the 11,000-piece collection from various places around campus into its new 17,000-square-foot, custom-built museum that opened last fall.
Wycherly spent nine years in New York working at a top printmaking workshop.
“I learned so much — especially about running a small business and dealing with really good artists and seeing how they work and what makes them successful,” he said.
Collections of woodblock “New Year Prints” are on display at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s “Gates of Friendship: Recent Acquisitions of Asian and Asian-American Art” exhibit at the University of Montana.
He was born in Missoula and grew up mostly in Pablo and Ronan plus other towns around the state, spent time in Rocky Boy’s Reservation, where he’s an enrolled member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe, and then finished out his high school years in Missoula.
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He earned his Bachelor of Fine Art from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, focusing on film, animation and video. He moved to New York and cut his teeth as a printer and studio manager at the Harlan and Weaver printmaking workshop from 2012 to 2019. Besides helping to produce the work, he said it was valuable experience in learning a small-business mentality.
He returned to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to get a master’s in printmaking, taught in Minnesota for about a year and had his eyes on options for jobs in his home state.
The “Seated Buddha under the Naga Snake” wood sculpture is on display at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s “Gates of Friendship: Recent Acquisitions of Asian and Asian-American Art” exhibit at the University of Montana.
In his personal art, which he’s exhibited around the U.S. in solo or group exhibitions, he’s focused on fine art printing and papermaking — including works like a “pulp” painting, where pulp and a printmaking screen are used to “make” the marks on the paper.
Papermaking appeals to him in part because there’s a physical process, and the way in which the water and fibers help determine the work lends to its meditative feel, he said.
In an email, museum director Rafael Chacon said Wycherly will continue his role as collections manager “but will expand them to cover specific curatorial tasks such as exhibition development, writing and public speaking. He will be supported in his work by a senior staff of five individuals and a full complement of student interns, work study, volunteers, committee members and docents.”
Derick Wycherly stands among pieces of art that are part of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s gallery exhibition “Gates of Friendship: Recent Acquisitions of Asian and Asian-American Art,” which Wycherly helped curate. The gallery showcases a diverse array of Asian and Asian-American artwork that come from a recent transfer from the Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collection’s holdings of Senator Mike and Maureen Mansfield’s collected art objects.
In 2022, the university let its letter of employment with its curator expire and split the duties between other employees.
The collection is still in the process of being moved from various storage places around campus, and Wycherly estimated that under 10% has been completed.
“It’s not just from Point A to Point B, you have to also have the museum process along the way,” he said.
Since the new building opened last fall, the museum’s main galleries upstairs have been dedicated to a large survey of work from the permanent collection.
It includes pieces by national, international and local artists. Major figures include Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Jacob Lawrence, Andy Warhol, Lee Krasner and Robert Motherwell. Living artists include Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes), whose major retrospective closed on May 12 at the Seattle Art Museum; AND Beth Lo, a retired UM art professor who’s known for her ceramic work around the country.
A “Girl” ceramic sculpture by Chinese artist Xiaoping Luo on display at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s “Gates of Friendship: Recent Acquisitions of Asian and Asian-American Art” exhibit at the University of Montana.
There are also artifacts, such as a boli, an abstracted animal form made by the Bamana people of southwestern Mali.
Right now courtesy of an anonymous lender, you can see two hyperrealist acrylic paintings of Black female figures serenely floating in water by contemporary artist Calida Rawles upstairs. One canvas, “Above Yesterday, Below Today,” measures 8 by 6.5 feet.
Full rotating exhibitions upstairs will start in 2025. One concept Wycherly is keen on is an exhibition of Montana artists age 39 and under juried from an open call. He also grew up around Native art through his family, and he’s interested in the idea of revisiting the work of Indigenous artists who hadn’t yet been featured.
Asian and Asian American art
In the Batts Gallery, a circular special exhibitions space on the ground floor, you can see a new show, “Gates of Friendship: Recent Acquisitions of Asian and Asian-American Art,” that Wycherly led curation on.
The idea came via pieces from the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library’s Archives that have either been transferred or have been permanently loaned.
Asian and Asian-American artwork is on display at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s “Gates of Friendship” exhibit at the University of Montana.
“The majority of that was collected by Mike and Maureen Mansfield during Mike’s tenure as ambassador to Japan — a lot of things they were gifted by the Japanese people or visitors to his office,” he said. It includes personal purchases and treasured items, such as pieces made by master craftspeople, like potters who were part of a generational line.
The mediums range from paintings on paper to contemporary ceramic sculptures, traditional pottery and ornate Noh masks. You can see three Buddha sculptures donated by Kern Mattei, who lived in Stevensville for 15 years. There’s even a calligraphic poem by Mao Zedong (yes, that Mao Zedong).
The labels include plenty of information about the works and were produced by students from Chacon’s Museum Studies class.
Pottery is on display at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s “Gates of Friendship: Recent Acquisitions of Asian and Asian-American Art” exhibit at the University of Montana.
“The students were tasked with selecting some of the work from the Mansfield or the other private donors in here and produce these texts,” he said.
They selected paintings by the Japanese artist Kizuku (Joe) Ohashi to explore the exchange of visual ideas from the West and the East — Ohashi’s still life and exteriors of embassies boast the thickly applied paint familiar from European painting.
“There’s still a Japanese aesthetic within it — the simplicity and imperfections,” he said.
