About the Painting:This painting by Joe De Yong is a small oil 7inches by 11 inches of Going-To-The-Sun Mountain and the upper end of St. Mary Lake. Going-To-The-Sun Mountain is along with Chief Mountain, one of the principal mountains of the east side of Glacier National Park. St. Mary Lake is on the east side of Glacier as well and is the second largest lake in the Park.
Joe De Yong was born in Webster Groves, Missouri in 1894. Yong, who could not hear, and according to one biographer had trouble speaking, was always a cowboy and in 1911 he met Tom Mix and became a technical advisor on his movies. While recovering from spinal meningitis De Yong wrote to Charles Russell, asking about a career as an artist.
By 1916 De Yong was living in the Russell house in Great Falls and spending summers at the Russell summer home at Lake McDonald.
The fact is that CMR taught Joe De Yong how to paint and turned him into if not a great artist, certainly one that even yet comman...
