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Robert (Bob) and Genevieve (Gennie) DeWeese were pioneers in the modernist art movement in the state of Montana. Primarily painters and printmakers, both artists influenced a generation of students through their teaching and involvement with the Montana arts community. Bob was Professor of Art at Montana State University from 1949 to 1977. Both artists exhibited extensively throughout the state and major retrospectives of their works were presented at the Montana State University School of Art in 1979, the Yellowstone Art Center in 1990 for Bob, and at the Missoula Art Museum in 1996 for Gennie. In 1995 Bob and Gennie received the Montana Governor's Award for the Arts, and the same year Gennie was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Montana State University in Bozeman.

Bob and Gennie were a hub for a very lively community of intellectual, modernist "thinkers" and artists of their generation, mostly a cross section of university faculty. They loved to stay in touch with what people were thinking about and what was new in their respective fields through hosting parties which provided them with lifetime friends. This was the context that they became acquainted with Robert Pirsig in the late 1950s.

Robert Pirsig was an instructor of English for Montana State College from September, 1959 to June, 1961. Pirsig is the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila. Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a fictional account of his motorcycle trip from Minnesota to California with his son and coming to terms with his nervous breakdown. The book featured conversations with his old friends, Bob and Gennie DeWeese, at their Cottonwood Canyon home.