Larry Len Peterson

Dr. Larry Len Peterson has published more books on artists of the American West than any other living author.

“2025 Best Author and Historical Nonfiction Book of the Year” for “Edward S. Curtis, Printing the Legends: Looking at Shadows in a West Lit Only by Fire” by “True West” magazine in their Best of the West edition. The book also won a Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award for 2025 Best Biography.

“The end result of Peterson's introspective journey as an author, scientist and Westerner is his publication of the most reflective philosophical history of American history published in the past 50 years." Excerpt from senior editor Dr. Stuart Rosebrook's featured review of "American Trinity: Jefferson, Custer, and the Spirit of the West" in the December 2017 "True West" magazine. Dr. Rosebrook receives approximately 600 books a year for consideration for review. Of those, he selects one book as 2018 Nonfiction Book of the Year and one author as 2018 Best Author of the Year. Dr. Peterson received both awards. “American Trinity” is now available in a revised and abridged paperback (2022).

LARRY LEN AND LEANNE PETERSON LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES, MONTANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY IN HELENA. From the “Society Star,” a publication of the Montana Historical Society (MTHS), summer 2024: “Having grown up in Plentywood, Montana, preserving and sharing Montana’s history is incredibly important to Peterson… Paying tribute to his passion for research and writing, the MTHS Library and Archives will be named in honor of the Petersons.” It is part of the magnificent, new Montana Heritage Center in Helena.

“Edward S. Curtis, Printing the Legends: Looking at Shadows in a West Lit Only by Fire” (2024) has been widely hailed as the finest book ever on Curtis. Excerpts from the book have appeared in: “Montana The Magazine of Western History,” “Western Art Collector,” “True West Magazine,” and Western Writers of America “Roundup Magazine.” His lecture at the Scottsdale Museum of the West on the Curtis book can be viewed on YouTube: Art Dealer Diaries, host Dr. Mark Sublette, Episode 295, May 16, 2024. A two part interview with Dr. Sublette on the Curtis book is also available—Episodes 278, January 17, 2024 and 279, January 24, 2024.

Another major event in 2024 is the reprinting of the 2019 coffee-table book “Blackfeet John L. ‘Cutapuis’ Clarke and the Silent Call of Glacier National Park: America’s Wood Sculptor.” The first printing sold out in one day. The 2024 reprint is available exclusively through The Clarke Gallery, East Glacier Park, Montana. Please check their website for availability.

"American Trinity" received the 2018 Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award for best nonfiction book of the year and was also honored as the December 2018 Great Plains Book of the Month from the University of Nebraska Center For Great Plains Studies in Lincoln: "Each month the Center for Great Plains Studies features one book as its 'Great Plains Book of the Month.' We carefully choose books that are accessible and on topics of interest and importance for our region.... Mainly we want to bring attention to what we consider exceptional works both to learn from and enjoy."

Dr. Peterson is the 2019 recipient of the Montana Heritage Guardian Award, the highest honor from the Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees in Helena. The award "honors exemplary commitment, effort, and impact in identifying, preserving, and presenting Montana's historical and cultural heritage for current and future generations....The Board reserves the right not to award a Montana Heritage Guardian Award in a given year unless warranted by the record of outstanding accomplishment." The award is presented at the annual Montana History Conference.

Dr. Peterson's landmark “The American West Reimagined: Gems from the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction” (2021) is 528 pages, 12.5 x 12.5 inches, with 560 spectacular images. An introduction and six informative essays accompany profiles on 120 outstanding artists. Selecting from over 10,000 lots holding over 150 world records, Peterson presents the artists’s historical and cultural milieu—a view at once panoramic and intimate. This publication is considered the standard reference book on art of the American West.

“Western Heritage Wrangler Award winner Larry Len Peterson, also recipient of the 2016 C.M. Russell Heritage Award, tackles a massive subject in a massive book that chronicles Western history with a focus on the roots of racism. Unique, impeccably researched, 'American Trinity' is part history and part journey of discovery with theology and philosophy thrown in, not to mention bits of anthropology and archaeology. This is more than a book about Western history. It's about American history, warts and all, told by an accomplished writer and historian. Royalties are to be donated to the Montana Historical Society for travel scholarships that will enable reservation schools to bring students to the Helena-based institution. 'True West' magazine selected Peterson and 'American Trinity' as Best Author and Nonfiction Book of the Year." “Nonfiction Book Reviews" in the Western Writers of America February 2018 "Roundup" magazine

Dr. Peterson is the recipient of the prestigious 2016 C. M. Russell Heritage Award that recognizes significant contributions in interpreting and documenting the legacy, culture, life, and country of Charles M. Russell’s West. He is past chairman of the C.M. Russell Museum Board of Directors in Great Falls, Montana. He is an award winning scientist, physician, cultural historian, and author. Above all, he is a searcher. Peterson grew up in Plentywood on the Great Plains of northeastern Montana north of Fort Union and worked as a youth in his grandfather’s and father’s hardware store. Next door was the Fort Peck Indian Reservation where he competed on the athletic field and in the gym against outstanding athletes in places like Poplar and Wolf Point.

Dr. Peterson attended Montana State University in Bozeman and received a B.S. in biology with honors from the University of Oregon in Eugene. Peterson graduated from medical school at the Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) in Portland and completed an internal medicine internship, a residency in the visual field of dermatology, and a National Institute of Health research fellowship. He published in numerous prestigious scientific and medical periodicals including: “The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” “The Journal of Clinical Investigation,” “Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry,” “The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology,” “Blood,” “Hemoglobin,” “Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics,” “Thyroid Research VIII,” “Biochimica et Biophysica Acta,” “The Archives of Dermatology,” and “The Journal of Investigative Dermatology.” Dr. Peterson has presented his scientific and clinical research throughout North America and Europe.

He received a number of outstanding research awards including several from the American Medical Association, Chicago; the Oregon Heart Association, Portland; the Somers Research Award from the Oregon Health and Sciences University; the Nelson Paul Anderson Award from the Pacific Dermatology Association, San Francisco; and the Henry W. Stelwagon Award from the American Academy of Dermatology, Chicago and the Philadelphia College of Physicians and Surgeons. As the recipient of the Bill Reed Traveling Fellowship to London, Peterson presented his research to the British Academy of Dermatology in Kensington. He was chosen to be the only dermatology resident elected to the National Board of the Society of Investigative Dermatology and served on the board in Washington, D.C. with noted scientists and department chairmen from many of the most outstanding medical schools in the country.

Dr. Peterson has published articles in a number of periodicals on art and history of the American West including “Western Art Collector,” Western Writers of America “Roundup Magazine,” “Russell’s West,” “True West,” “The Big Sky Journal,” “Ranch & Reata,” and “Montana: The Magazine of Western History.”

He has lectured at the Prix de West in Oklahoma City; the Charles M. Russell Educational Symposium, Great Falls; “Montana’s Charlie Russell Symposium” at the Montana Historical Society that in 2015 celebrated the sesquicentennial of the Society’s founding; the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming; Glacier National Park; and the Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, among many other venues. Dr. Peterson consulted on the PBS production of the West’s greatest artist, Charles M. Russell, and has been an art consultant for the Coeur d’ Alene Art Auction, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams, and Skinners. He is a member of the Western Writers of America. Peterson is an art book reviewer for “Roundup Magazine,” the magazine of the Western Writers of America.