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Dale Beckman was born in Forsyth Montana in 1955. As a young child, his affinity with the natural world was apparent as he spent days playing in the hills with his older brothers looking for arrowheads and gazing over the Yellowstone River Valley. Dale was an image-maker at an early age and art became an obsession. In 1959 the family moved east to the railroad town of Glendive, home to Makoshika State Park. 

The Badlands presented a sculpture garden made by Nature. Gigantic abstract erosion formations. It is an environment that blends the objective image with the abstract. Dale accredits the Badland formations with influencing his painting style, known as” abstract realism”.   

Dale received a B.A. from Rocky Mountain College in 1979 and continued with post-graduate work at the University of Montana. He was also active with the Miller foundation of Art in Billings. In 1986 Mr. Beckman moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He exhibited his work in the outdoor venues as a member of the Santa Fe Society of Artists, Artist Equity, and Rio Grande Artist Cooperative. He also marketed his work in regional galleries. In 1996 he moved to Abiquiu, New Mexico to paint the desert that artist Georgia O’Keefe called her home. In 2014, Dale received a grant from the Myrna Loy Foundation to paint the Badlands of Makoshika State Park.

In 2020, The Hockaday Art Museum in Kalispell was host to an exhibit of Mr. Beckman’s paintings of Montana’s Badlands.