Bernard Thomas

After the devastating Rapid City flood of 1972, prominent banker Art Dahl wanted to re-energize his community. He promised to pay for a new art center on the site of a condemned city auditorium, but only if it included a mural by Bernard Thomas, one of Dahl’s favorite artists. The subject: American economic history.

Thomas was a Wyoming native who studied art in Los Angeles and Paris. He became famous for his paintings of Western life, and was known for immersing himself in his work. “I slept on the ground alongside the outfit’s top hands,” he once said. “I heard their stories of wilder days, and I’m the one who believes the artist who has lived it is the one who can put the right feel in his work. Nothing gripes me more than a Western illustration done by an Eastern illustrator who doesn’t know straight up about the West.”

He tackled the Cyclorama* with similar gusto. Thomas labored 455 days on the mural, which stands 10 feet high and 180 feet around. It became the centerpiece of the Dahl Arts Center when it opened in 1974.

Town residents got to watch Thomas’ masterpiece unfold. “Many people in Rapid City had never seen an artist work,” says Darla Drew Lerdal, former assistant director of The Dahl.

“People would bring their children and grandchildren and Thomas would let them watch for hours at a time.” As a result, many Rapid Citians became models and were painted into the Cyclorama. Thomas included Dahl’s grandparents as European immigrants and painted himself as a World War II soldier.

Special lighting and a 10-minute narration add to the experience of seeing one of three cycloramas left in the United States.

Source:
"Cyclorama, by Bernard P. Thomas". Ten ‘Must See’ South Dakota Paintings
By John Andrews, Website of South Dakota Magazine, 2018