The Montezuma Heritage Museum has received an original oil portrait of Jack House, the last traditional chief of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. The portrait was painted in 1986 by self-taught artist and tribal member Stacy W. Lancing.
According to museum development coordinator Barbara Stagg, Lancing created the painting from memory and a favorite photograph of House, who died in 1971.
Lancing lived his entire life on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation before his death in 2022.
“Art can be such a great way of capturing history, and that’s why this gift is also exciting,” museum Executive Director Elizabeth Quinn MacMillan told The Journal. “It’s a beautiful portrait, but it also brings history to life. There’s a lot of personal connections with Stacy Lancing having done the painting. It’s just a great way to share those human stories in the museum. People connect with art and history differently than just a text panel or an object, so that’s why those gifts are so valuable.”
The portrait was donated by Frank and Cindy Green of Cortez in memory of Frank Green’s father, Johnny Green, and Lancing. Johnny Green owned the painting after Lancing.
“It seemed so fortuitous, that gift,” MacMillan said. “Barbara and the team had done so much work with the Ute tribe on that exhibit, and then to have people come into the museum and feel inspired to give a gift … it’s a really wonderful thing.”
The Green family donated the painting unannounced just days before the opening of the museum’s new permanent exhibit focused on the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
“Literally, a day or so before we were having the opening of the exhibit, the Green family walked in with this painting,” Stagg said. “We didn’t know anything about it, and it was an incredible happening that they happened to come together like that. So, they were thrilled too, when they looked at the exhibit and saw we would add the painting to it.”
Stacy Lancing’s younger brother, Norman Lancing, also a self-taught artist, is well-known for paintings, drawings and ceramics specializing in sgraffito techniques. His work can be viewed at the Toh-Atin Gallery in Durango.
The portrait of House is now on display in the museum’s main gallery alongside the new Ute Mountain Ute exhibit.
“We really appreciate all of our donors who think of the museum when it comes to things like art or family collections or photos,” MacMillan said. “Those really help us tell stories.”
