Collections of:
Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art

Agrarian – pertaining to lands, fields, or their tenure

The Museum Collection

As the only museum in North America devoted exclusively to Agrarian Art, the Museum Collection includes both acquired and loaned work by American’s foremost Agrarian Artists, such as Winslow Homer and Harvey Dunn. As the national Center for Nichols Studies, the cornerstone of the collection features Nichols' "Four Seasons", four paintings originally commissioned for a David City, Nebraska bank, and subsequently acquired by the museum located in David City, hometown of Dale Nichols. The growing collection also includes many historic works by artists such as John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton, Robert Gwathmey, Birger Sandzen, Augustus Dunbier, Peter Helck, and Robert Wesley Amick. The most rapidly growing part of the collection is contemporary art by exceptional Agrarian Artists such as Robert Bateman, Marilyn Bower, Mark L. Moseman, Charles Banks Wilson, Jane Scott, Tim Klunder, Sara Merkel-Jacobs, Jim Hamil, and John Roush.

The Dale Nichols Collection

Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art is located in David City, Nebraska, the hometown of Dale Nichols,who along with Benton, Wood and Curry, is best known as one of the major artists of the Regionalism art movement. As the national center for Nichols studies, the museum is educating the public on Nichols and his broader contribution to American Art. This collection documents the life and work of Dale Nichols as he explored various art styles and locations around the USA and abroad. Curators of the museum have become the nation’s foremost scholars on the life and work of Dale Nichols. The Nichols Collection is a national resource for those interested in the work of Dale Nichols. Family, friends and fans of Dale Nichols continue to loan and donate to this growing collection of paintings, prints, drawings, books, papers, letters, plates, trays, cards, tins, recordings, and other memorabilia, - the largest special Nichols Collection in the world.

The Mark and Carol Moseman Collection

Since 1969, Mark and Carol Moseman have collected over seventy works of both historic and contemporary art by exceptional agrarian artists from around the country. As a prominent agrarian artist himself, Mark L. Moseman encouraged many of these artists in their careers. The largest part of the museum collection is comprised of either gifted or loaned works from the Mark and Carol Moseman Collection. This collection is primarily original paintings, and includes some sculpture. Limited edition prints include a complete collection of Winslow Homer engravings on agrarian subjects. The Mark and Carol Moseman Collection shows an agrarian culture of caring for neighbors and the land. This collection focuses on artists who know and interpret many different “defining moment” aspects of agrarianism.

The Covault/Nolan Collection

In recent years, Allen and Anna (Nolan) Covault have been collecting Agrarian Art for donation to Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art. Allen Covault generously provided funds for the museum to purchase Nichols' "Four Seasons". Due to her longstanding love for the art of Robert Bateman, Anna Nolan funded the museum purchase of "Windtalkers". The Museum’s Covault/Nolan Collection is comprised of gifted works by Peter Helck, Marilyn Bower, Karen Krull Robart, M.L. Moseman, and Jerene Kruse to name a few. Allen Covault and Anna Nolan continue to add to their collection. The Covault/Nolan collection celebrates agrarian people, animals, weather, landscape and environment.

The Edward Glannon Collection

This collection includes several watercolors and numerous prints generously donated by the family of Edward Glannon, a painter and printmaker from Pennsylvania. About his work he said, “I had a feeling even as a boy that nature could give me a symbol to say anything that I could ever say. The trees, the leaves, the lights, the texture of the grass, the fields, were a complete language that could express any feelings that any human being could have.”

The Luigi Lucioni Collection

William and Patty Nelson of Hastings, Nebraska recently gifted their collection of 44 original etchings by Italian-born American painter and printmaker Luigi Lucioni to Bone Creek Museum. Lucioni lived and worked mainly in New York City, but also spent time working in Vermont. His still lifes, landscapes, and portraits are known for their realism, precisely drawn forms and smooth paint surface. Like many of his fellow Regionalists, his work was marketed through Associated American Artists in New York.

The Fortune Collection

From 1930 to 1950, Fortune Magazine published cover art by well known American artists, such as Robert Gwathmey and Peter Helck. In order to obtain unique one of a kind images, artists were required to select and create their own artwork, and not produce art on Fortune’s feature story of the month. These early covers are serigraph prints on heavy paper. The high quality resulted in a magazine that sold for ten times what other magazines cost at the time. This cover art collection chronicles a great variety of exceptional agrarian imagery showing an early frequency of this subject, becoming less frequent during the industrial revolution.

The Wayne Soukup Art Literature Collection

This collection is a memorial to Wayne Soukup (1942-2009), who was raised on his family’s farm in Butler County, Nebraska. Wayne Soukup earned a Bachelor of Art Degree in Art History. When his father became ill, he moved back to his family farm, where he farmed for most of his life. Wayne Soukup was a photographer, bird watcher, and avid reader. He was an agrarian who loved the birds around his farm pond. He acquired and enjoyed a large collection of art and photography books. On his death, friends and family generously established this collection, which continues to grow in funds and books. This collection is the cornerstone of the Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art Library.