Barbara Van Cleve

LIVING INDUCTEE

BARBARA VAN CLEVE

DISTRICT 7 - YEAR 2025

Barb Van Cleve was born August 17, 1935, into a fifth generation ranching family, the eldest of four. Her life's work is a profound photographic exploration and celebration of the American West, which has made an indelible cultural and artistic impact on our state. She carved her niche capturing both the rugged Montana landscapes as well as the importance and beauty of life on the ranch.

Van Cleve's journey began in the small town of Melville outside of Big Timber, Montana. It was here, amidst the sweeping prairies and towering peaks, that her love affair with photography blossomed. At an early age, she found herself entranced by the magnificence of her surroundings and the purity of a life made off of the land. Critical of her own hand-drawing skills, Van Cleve recalls seeking a way to visually communicate her awe and appreciation for ranching. After spending hours poring over the photographs in LIFE magazine at the family’s kitchen table, she ultimately sought to document what moved her through the lens of a camera.

At the age of eleven, Van Cleve’s parents indulged her persistent pleas. The “Brownie” camera soon became her mode of expression. However, developing film was expensive, even at the Big Timber drugstore. To support her photography habit, Van Cleve—often with her little brother in tow—worked odd jobs on the ranch. She recalls that her contribution to tearing down a shed (which included removing shingles, gathering nails and stacking siding) was worth $4-$5, roughly the same as it cost to develop a roll of 180 film and produce a contact sheet for the images. These paid jobs were in addition to the numerous chores Barb was expected to do as a member of the Van Cleve family: mucking stalls, moving hay, and pressing her father’s shirts with an iron that she heated on the family’s stove. Van Cleve noted with fondness that her father “loved an ironed shirt.”

It was perhaps her obsession with the black and white LIFE photographs, coupled with the prohibitive cost of color film, that led Van Cleve to stake her claim early in her career as a black and white photographer. She recounts as a teenager learning about Ansel Adams’ “zones of density” and wanting to achieve a similar look and feel. In order to achieve this, she devised a plan: “I placed a piece of red cellophane across the viewfinder, to get away from the seductiveness of color. This allowed me to concentrate more on the density of the images, which ranged from totally white to totally black. You learned how to work within those ranges. Everything was some density of red.”

Despite her passion and talent, Van Cleve’s path to professional photography was not entirely direct. In a 2005 interview, Van Cleve offered this: "I don't think anyone in those days felt that a young woman could support herself in art, let alone photography. Mother sat down and talked to me, and I decided I'd better get a teaching certificate so I could support myself." Although she had a full scholarship offer to Wellesley College in Massachusetts, her Van Cleve grandmother wanted her to attend Duchesne College in Nebraska. After receiving her undergraduate degree in Omaha, she earned a master's degree in English literature from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She then joined the faculty at Chicago’s DePaul University, where she taught Victorian Literature and served as Dean of Women for several years. Van Cleve pursued teaching in large part because it allowed her to have summers off so she might return to the ranch in Montana. There she’d spend three to four months taking photographs and leading pack trips at the Lazy K Bar Ranch near Melville.

Over numerous decades, Van Cleve embarked on countless adventures across Montana, immersing herself in its unique geography and western culture. It should be noted, in addition, that many of Van Cleve’s pictures were shot while she herself was in the saddle, often at a full gallop. These photos are a testament not only to her artistic eye but remarkable skill as a horseman.

One of Van Cleve's most notable contributions to Montana culture lies in her documentation of the state's ranching heritage. She recalls with fondness observing and photographing the way in which various ranches deployed different methods to accomplish the exact same tasks. When it came to branding, for instance, Van Cleve recalls, “Some ranchers put the calves in chutes, others devised systems that operated like assembly lines” while others still simply roped individual calves.

Van Cleve was impressed by the ranchers’ ingenuity as well as their hard-working nature. Her photographs immortalized the labor of stoic cowboys and cowgirls across Montana, and her images also celebrate those who devote their lives to the rodeo tradition. Van Cleve’s images offer a glimpse into those ways of life that are rapidly disappearing, preserving memories for future generations to cherish. In addition to her focus on the people who work on the land, Van Cleve has also explored the intricate relationship between humanity and nature in Montana. Her landscapes are imbued with a reverence for the untamed wilderness.

Over the years, Van Cleve's work has garnered widespread acclaim and recognition, cementing her status as one of Montana's most esteemed photographers. Her accolades are comprised of numerous awards and honors, including the Montana Governor's Arts Award, recognizing her significant contributions to preserving the state's cultural landscape. In 2016, she was honored with the Western Heritage Wrangler Award for Photography, by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, further solidifying her place as a luminary in the world of western photography.

In addition, Van Cleve's work has been featured in countless exhibitions and publications, both nationally and internationally. Her photographs were published in renowned magazines such as Photography and Western Horseman, where her work graced the cover several times. In 1995, she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.

Despite her widespread acclaim, Van Cleve remains rooted in the land that has always been her muse. She continues to call Montana home, drawing inspiration from the people, the landscape, and the core values that are central to Montanans’ way of life.