While the exhibit of George Catlin artworks records the Upper Missouri River Valley as it appeared not long after the visit by the Lewis and Clark expedition, a second collection of works at the Heritage Center by contemporary Bismarck artist Vern Erickson place members of the expedition and their story into that landscape.

The Catlin exhibit shows the American painter at his best. That's good because Catlin was no Michelangelo. But he was tenacious, determined and not without talent, and he wasn't afraid to get into the field. Catlin was here briefly in 1832. As a result, his great body of work tells us volumes about what life was like in American cultures before the aboriginal nations were inevitably influenced by Europeon Americans.

Erickson, on the other hand, has lived and painted in Bismarck for more than 40 years. He knows cottonwood trees, grasses and other plants in all of their seasons. He knows the animals. The river. He knows the small details of the history of this place.

However, research and observation take you only so far as an artist. There has to be artistic talent and inspiration. Erickson has that as well. His works have been exhibited at the Charles M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Mont., and two of his paintings are on permanent display at the North Dakoka Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn.

Sixteen of Erickson's paintings make up an exhibit titled "Interpretations of Lewis and Clark in North Dakota." They are history paintings - snapshots from the explorers' journals. One painting tells the story of the birth of Sakakawea's son. Another recalls the expedition working its way up river in a keelboat.

The paintings are honest in their detail. They fall into the catagory of history paintings, in that they bring to life a pivotal moment from history.

Research makes up about 70 percent of the time spent on an artwork, developing the image requires about 20 percent and then 10 percent in painting, Erickson said.

The broad-shouldered painter has an extensive library of research materials and countless sketchbooks from his own field work. They allow him to create these scenes from the past.

"A painting has got to tell a story," Erickson said in an earlier Tribune story.

Erickson has worked at his painting full time since 1972. Before that he worked for the State Historical Society and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.

The Lewis and Clark works by Erickson will be on display at the Heirtiage Center until April 3. The Catlin exhibit will be up until Sept. 25.