BILLINGS.- The Yellowstone Art Museum presents the exhibit Light on Glass & Zig Zag Lightning: Selections from the Charles M. Bair Family Collection. The exhibit consists of 15 Navajo weavings and a selection of photogravures by Edward S. Curtis from the Charles M. Bair Family Collection. According to Anne Makepeace, author of Edward S. Curtis – Coming to Light, published by the National Geographic Society, “(Curtis’) haunting portraits of Indians in ceremonial costumes and against dramatic natural backgrounds became more than a record of the Native American past. They helped shape contemporary perceptions of Indian cultures.”

The Bair family collection truly represents a major cultural and historical legacy of Montana, and it celebrates the unique interests of this visionary family.

Charles M. Bair came to Montana from Ohio in 1883 as a conductor on the Northern Pacific Railroad. From that moment forward, Billings would remain "his town" no matter where in the world he found himself doing business. He went into the ranching business in 1894 by filing a claim for 320 acres of desert land near today's site of Lavina, Montana. Although he became a successful rancher, Charlie Bair made his fortune in the Alaska Gold Rush. Over the years, he invested in mining, oil, and real estate to supplement his extensive ranch holdings, becoming one of the largest sheep owners in the world. At one time, Charlie was running as many as 300,000 sheep.

On the eve of a new century, Charlie Bair and his family found themselves financially and socially positioned to affect their home state positively on a number of fronts. Almost two decades of hard work, combined with the overwhelmingly lucrative outcome of the Klondike excursion, allowed Bair and his family to travel, purchase art, and to experience many opportunities in ever-widening social and political circles. It was during this time that Charlie Bair became great friends with Charles Russell, Joseph Henry Sharp, J.K. Ralston, and Will James. For many years, he and his family made substantial contributions to Montana and the West. The years between his birth in 1857 and his death in 1943 encompass the story of a quiet but competitive, ambitious, and enormously generous pioneer, father, citizen, entrepeneur, and philanthropist who had left his mark on the West. Charlie Bair, the King of the Western Wool Growers, was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 1975.