{"id":17035,"date":"2025-08-07T12:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/family-donates-historic-paintings-to-montezuma-heritage-museum\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","slug":"family-donates-historic-paintings-to-montezuma-heritage-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/family-donates-historic-paintings-to-montezuma-heritage-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Family donates historic paintings to Montezuma Heritage Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Kent family donated two paintings done by Richard Ellis Wagner to the Montezuma Heritage Museum on Sunday. From left to right: Rylan Beery, Alec Kent, Aubrie Kent, Mitch Kent, Cameron Beery, Tim Kent, Mike Beery, Sheila Kent and Nikki (Kent Phelps) Beery. (Bailey Duran\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A family with roots in the Cortez area donated two original paintings by Richard Ellis Wagner to the Montezuma Heritage Museum on Sunday, and the presentation of the paintings took place at the museum\u2019s location on South Chestnut Street.<\/p>\n

The first artwork is an oil painting that depicts the historic Lebanon schoolhouse, where the family\u2019s late father, Delmer Kent, attended. This former school was once attended by many Cortez-area residents. The second, an acrylic painting, portrays the Battlerock schoolhouse, which currently houses the Battle Rock Charter School.<\/p>\n

The Kent family, who donated the paintings in their parents Delmer and Gloria\u2019s honor, has long-standing roots in the area, though many of them have moved out of state. The Kents shared that their parents once owned and operated a drugstore that was located where Notah Dineh now stands from the 1960s to the 1980s. Before that, their grandparents operated a Taylor\u2019s Market in the same location from the 1940s to 1960s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were preparing for an estate sale and were coming to understand the significance of the paintings, we realized that potential buyers in Arizona would not understand their significance,\u201d Tim Kent told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cResearch revealed the Montezuma Heritage Museum and it seemed like an immediate fit. Director Liz (Quinn MacMillan) was enthusiastic about the donation immediately and described how they would fit right in with their existing collection. We are thrilled that the paintings will be enjoyed by locals and area visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tim
Tim Kent (middle) and museum executive director Liz Quinn MacMillan (right) discuss the deed transferring ownership of the paintings to the Montezuma Heritage Museum while Sheila Kent (left) looks on. (Bailey Duran\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Delmer Kent, Gloria Kent and their children, Tim, Mitch and Sheila, graduated from Montezuma-Cortez High School. Gloria Kent\u2019s father was also on the school board during his time running Taylor\u2019s Market and had been a teacher \u201cat several of the original rural schools early in his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were delighted to be able to donate the two Richard Wagner paintings,\u201d Mitch Kent said.<\/p>\n

Executive director of the Montezuma Heritage Museum, Liz Quinn MacMillan, said at the presentation that the museum was honored to receive the paintings and that they would fit right into the museum\u2019s upcoming exhibit for the history of schools in Montezuma County.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re extremely excited to add the two schoolhouse paintings by local artist, Richard Wagner, to our permanent collections,\u201d MacMillan said. \u201cArt can be a wonderful window into preserving and sharing our history, and our country schoolhouses are an important part of that history. It\u2019s also really meaningful that the Kent family has a connection to our early schools, and we really appreciate them thinking of the museum for this gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wagner was an American artist born in Ohio. He was primarily known for his landscape paintings of the American West, specifically Colorado. Many of his paintings were done in Southwest Colorado, including paintings in Telluride and the Cortez area. Though many of his works are held in private collections, some of his paintings are featured at the Denver Art Museum and Library of Congress.<\/p>\n

Some of his art was exhibited<\/a> at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. He published two books with his wife, combining his love of art with her love of poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

artwork was painted by Richard Ellis Wagner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,364,21,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-17035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-community","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17035"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20528,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17035\/revisions\/20528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17035"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=17035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}