Whyte Museum Receives Surprise Donation

Whyte Museum Receives Surprise Donation

In June, while speaking at the opening of the exhibition Yellowstone to Yukon: The Journey of Wildlife and Art, the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies’ executive director Michale Lang got a surprise. Peter Poole, a local resident and trustee of the Eleanor Luxton Foundation, presented her with a working sketch by the late landscape artist Carl Rungius. The sketch is for Runguis’ high-profile painting Lake McArthur (which won the artist the $500 Carnegie Prize in 1925), also in the Whyte’s collection. Poole’s donation enhances an important collection of Rungius landscape and wildlife art at the Museum — Rungius was closely associated with Banff throughout his career as a painter, and he maintained art studios in the town as well as in New York.