Ilsa Matthes | Daily Press Bonifas Arts Center Gallery Coordinator Kate Oman shows a grouping of art featuring woodcocks in the U.P. Wildlife exhibit. The exhibit features 28 artists and more than 125 individual pieces.

ESCANABA — The “U.P. Wildlife” exhibit, now on display in the Bonifas Arts Center, is bringing a taste of the great outdoors inside while giving patrons of the arts another way to support the Bonifas.

While the exhibit itself features 28 U.P. artists and more than 125 individual pieces, the show traces its origin to a donation of Dietmar Krumery prints from the Robert Schmeling Family. Krumery, who is widely known in the U.P. art scene for his wildlife paintings, spent much of his life in Manistique. Prior to his death in 2016, he won the Michigan Duck Stamp competition five times, was named the Michigan Ducks Unlimited Artist of the Year five times, was MUCC Michigan Wildlife Artist of the Year twice, and won many other wildlife-focused art competitions and honors. He was also featured in museums and exhibits, including the National Wildlife Art Exhibit in Kansas City and at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wis., which is internationally renowned for its annual Birds in Art exhibition.

“My dad had quite a collection of Dietmar’s pieces and he left those to my brother and myself and we have filled our walls and we just ran out of wall space. And there were just so many nice prints that we wanted to share them with the Bonifas, and my dad and stepmom, Joanne, were avid supporters of the Bonifas so we felt this was a good home for them,” said Jeanene Schmeling Brandt of the donation.

During the show, the donated prints and two Krumery originals will be available for sale. Funds raised by the sales will support Bonifas programs and activities.

According to Bonifas Gallery Coordinator Kate Oman, the rest of the exhibit was fleshed out by contacting U.P. artists known for wildlife art such as Tracey Anderson, Dave Amis, and newer artists to the area like Betsey Buckner and Jessica Lamirand. The pieces the artists submitted for the show were then grouped with similar subject matter found in the prints.

“I wanted to get some animals that would represent what was on display from Dietmar. So the Dietmar print was kind of the … center of those,” said Oman, showing a grouping of pieces featuring birds on the gallery’s walls.

The U.P. Wildlife exhibit will continue through Nov. 5.