Lela Autio

Autio died in 2016 of kidney cancer which rapidly spread to her lungs. She continued to work on her art until illness forced her to stop.

She received a MAM award in 2011 for her contributions, and received the Governor's Arts Award in 2015 from the Montana Arts Council. According to ceramicist Joshua DeWeese, “Lela has played an important role in the development of the contemporary art scene in Montana. Her work has always challenged the traditional ideas of western representational art prevalent in the state, from the early abstract paintings, to the fabric ‘pop art’ sculpture created in the 70s, to the latest bold primary-colored plexiglas assemblages."

Her work was exhibited in many shows, including a faculty exchange of the University of Montana with the People's Republic of China in Hangchow in 1983, Montana Current Ideas, the Yellowstone Art Center, 1986, Judy Chicago/Lela Autio, Paris Gibson Square, Great Falls, 1987, The Manipulated Thread at the Missoula Museum of the Arts, 1988 and the Missoula Artists' Exchange Exhibition in Oaxaca, Mexico, 1989. Her art was also the subject of a career survey in 2000 which was shown at the Missoula Art Museum and the Holter Museum of Art in Helena. In 2012, three Plexiglass pieces by Autio were selected for a statewide survey of contemporary art known as the Montana Triennial.

Following her mother's death when she was 3 years old, Autio was raised by her father along with two sisters and one brother. Her brother died in a drowning accident at the age of 8. She graduated from Great Falls High School and attended Montana State College (now Montana State University) with a scholarship, and achieved a B.A. She received an MA in painting and drawing from the University of Montana in 1961 where she was a student of Frances Senska.

Lela and Rudy Autio, along with Peter Voulkos, helped found the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. She was an artist in residence at the Archie Bray for five years during which time she taught classes and made pottery. She also contributed to the transformation of the Archie Bray from a brickyard to a ceramics art center with an international reputation before moving to Missoula in 1957. Autio also helped to found the Missoula Art Museum in the former Carnegie Library. She was instrumental in obtaining a lease for the Museum building.

Autio also created a number of paintings early in her career of landscapes and individuals from her community of Montana artists. In the 1950s her paintings were influenced by Abstract Expressionism as well as by latter day Impressionism. Her husband Rudy Autio also credited her with his introduction to Matisse, which would influence the three dimensional decor he added to his ceramic vessels. Her pieces are notable for their use of color and shape, as well as their freedom from regional themes and dogma. Autio was a proud modernist. She was quoted as saying “I never did a popular, traditional painting of horse and elk and all that sort of thing. I always did abstract expressionism”.

Lela Autio (April 12, 1927 – January 23, 2016) was a modernist painter and sculptor from Great Falls, Montana notable as a co-founder of the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana and of the Missoula Art Museum