Touring down a mud highway via the rolling grasslands of southern Montana, the snow-capped Beartooth Mountains slowly seem within the distance. A metal-roofed, barnlike construction quickly comes into view and, beside it, a 25-foot, summary black metal sculpture by the artist Alexander Calder. On a low-lying stone wall, rusted steel letters spell “Tippet Rise Artwork Middle.”
Right here, on 12,500 acres of ranch land north of Yellowstone Nationwide Park, the philanthropists Cathy and Peter Halstead have established the world’s largest sculpture park. Now getting into its tenth season, Tippet Rise is among the few locations on earth the place guests can encounter monumental sculptures in an uninterrupted panorama; soak up open-air concert events and poetry readings by world-renowned performers; and traverse the panorama on 15 miles of climbing and biking trails, all whereas cattle and sheep graze.
A brand new mannequin of sculpture park, Tippet Rise is a spot the place artwork enhances the expertise of nature. Right here, the artwork is meant to enrich relatively than dominate the panorama, expressing the Halsteads’ imaginative and prescient of a park the place guests turn into attuned to the pure rhythms of the world and their place inside it.
The Halsteads had been impressed to create Tippet Rise, which opened in 2016, after visiting different outside sculpture parks just like the Storm King Artwork Middle in upstate New York and the Fondation Maeght on the French Riviera. They sought to create a spot the place music, artwork, structure and panorama may harmonize.
“Peter and I’ve identified one another since we had been youngsters, and had very comparable passions round artwork and music,” recalled Ms. Halstead, 77, seated subsequent to Mr. Halstead, 78, on a video name. “Lots of our early experiences needed to do with artwork and music outdoor.” The Halsteads are additionally founders of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Basis and trustees of the Sidney E. Frank Basis, the namesake arts group of Ms. Halstead’s father. Earlier than founding Tippet Rise, Ms. Halstead served as chairwoman of her father’s liquor firm, which created Gray Goose vodka.
