National Museum of Wildlife Art
Wildlife art from many centuries meets a sage-covered sculpture trail above the National Elk Refuge, making the real landscape part of how visitors read anatomy, symbolism, and conservation.
Artwork inspired by Carl Rungius
The collection ranges from early animal imagery through Audubon, Carl Rungius, modernism, photography, and contemporary work, but chronology is only one way through it. Choose a species—bison, elk, bear, or bird—and compare when an artist is describing anatomy, constructing a symbol, recalling a hunt, or arguing for conservation.
Outside, a three-quarter-mile trail places more than twenty sculptures on the sage hillside above the National Elk Refuge and Gros Ventre range. That setting is not decorative: It lets you compare represented movement and habitat with living ecology across the valley. Indoors, look for material experiments such as the wire bison head and use the free accessibility tools to experience art beyond vision alone.
- Collection
- Wildlife art from 2500 BCE onward
- Setting
- Above the National Elk Refuge
- Allow
- 2½–3½ hours
Quick guide
- Species across several
- Track one species across several centuries.
- Compare
- Separate scientific observation from symbolic use.
Read the collection at National Museum of Wildlife Art
- Opening question
- Begin with track one animal across several centuries and note when observation gives way to symbol or story.
- Species across several
- Compare Audubon’s descriptive detail, Rungius’s field-based anatomy, and contemporary conservation work.
- Evidence to test
- Walk the three-quarter-mile Sculpture Trail and treat the National Elk Refuge view as part of the interpretation.
- Conditions check
- Check study the wire bison head, tactile display, and other works whose materials change how an animal is perceived.
Good to know
Advance purchase is optional; tickets are sold on arrival. Online tickets are nonrefundable but remain usable for one year after the reservation date; use the primary admission page for child pricing.
Notice these
- Wildlife art from 2500 BCE onward
- Above the National Elk Refuge
- Separate scientific observation from symbolic use.