Distinctly Montana Magazine

75 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m EDNOR THERRIAULT No matter how challenging things got, Ralston didn't com- plain. He was content, he was patient, and he had a joy for life. This was evident in his paintings, and in the stories he told. "He had a great sense of humor, and loved to talk," Scott said. "Whenever someone would come see him he'd drop everything and sit down." • • • Scott always had an affinity for her grandfather's paintings, but as she's grown and become a historian like him, she has even more admiration for his work. "J.K. painted from memory," Scott said. "He'd put the image in his head and then go back to the canvases…his style of cre- ation was to stand back, walk up to the canvas, give it a couple of strokes and then step back. It was a methodically slow process." Scott says attention to detail was Ralston's strength, and his biggest priority. "Detail was so intense for him," she said. "For example, 'After the Battle' took years to paint, and years and years of research- ing Custer's Last Stand and what happened after the soldiers were killed. There are 39 vignettes in the piece, and they're all historically accurate." Such ambitious undertakings did not go unnoticed. Ralston sold many paintings during his lifetime that hang all over the state, and beyond. His painting "Into the Unknown," depicting Lewis and Clark meeting the Shoshones, is featured at the Gate- way Arch in St. Louis. Ralston was also inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City as a historian and artist in 1978 and the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2012. Ralston's legacy is further preserved at the Western Heritage Museum in Billings, where his log cabin studio (where he lived and created so many of his most famous paintings) has resided for close to 20 years and is open for tours every summer. When Scott gets the opportunity to visit, it keeps her inspired to pre- serve her grandfather's work, and it makes her feel closer to him, like he's once again present, ready to sit down and tell a story. "The feel of the artist's space is still there," she said. "It still smells like turpentine." Ralston pictured in front of his log cabin in Billings, which also served as his art studio. He and his wife Willo lived here for 30-plus years. In 2005, his home studio was moved to the Western Heritage Center, also located in Billings. Into the Unknown This painting is displayed at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. After the Battle Ralston's 1955 epic painting of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

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