Adel Sheep Shearing, Sieben Live Stock Company by J.M. Cooper
Join us for an artist talk and opening reception Thursday, November 5th, 2026 at 4 p.m. Sponsored by Missoula Art Museum & MAGDA.
Free.
This series of photographs focuses on the annual sheep shearing at the Sieben Live Stock Company in Adel near Cascade, Montana. Cooper photographed the event over three separate years in 1999, 2000, and 2007. The ranch was founded in 1868 by Henry Sieben, who is the subject of a new book published in tandem with the exhibition by Farcountry Press and the Foundation for Montana History.
The resulting 22 images presented here are each framed 17 x 20 inches. All photographs were taken on 35 mm TMAX 400 Kodak film, which was hand processed, then scanned as negatives, edited in Photoshop, and printed on archival Hahnemuhle paper.
Cooper began photographing in the 1970s, and was a student of Lee Nye, the infamous black & white photographer from Missoula, MT. Cooper says, “When Lee walked into the classroom wearing aviator sunglasses, I knew I was going to be a photographer.”
Cooper recently retired as archival photographer for the Montana Historical Society. He has documented spring shearing and branding, and Montana architecture including the Archie Bray Foundation, Deer Lodge Prison, and Helena’s Last Chance Gulch. His photos are published in Dark Spaces: Montana’s Historic Penitentiary at Deer Lodge in collaboration with Ellen Baulmer.
The Foundation for Montana History provided support to the artist in printing, matting, and framing the photographs for exhibition.
