Art Unveiled: St.

Louis County Historical Society Unveils its Little Known and Seldom Seen Art Treasures
By Susan Schwanekamp One of the enjoyable aspects of working for the St. Louis County Historical Society is participating in the production of its special events. When the guests at the events also find them valuable and enjoyable, we feel we have done our job. On November 16, 2011, the Society will present a one-day exhibition in the Great Hall of the St. Louis County Heritage & Arts Center of many of the works of art from its collection; most of them have not been seen in decades. The paintings range from the work of Gilbert Munger and David Ericson to some WPA paintings to many other lesser known artists who nevertheless produced work of exceptional quality, such as Peter Lund and Howard Sprague. The selection was made keeping in mind what is most famous, what our staff thought was the best, and other criteria, such as an intention to include some folk art (Early Twig, by Emma Rood, 1970) and retrievability from storage. What follows is some background on each of the artists in this showing. Two works by Peter F. Lund, a Norwegian immigrant, will be on display: Railroad Pass over River at Jay Cooke Park, 1894 and Sailboat on Lake Superior, 1890. Lunds painting was apparently self-taught, although it showed some knowledge of academic conventions of composition, color, and composition. His brushwork also reveals enough dexterity to be a product of some academic training. Little is known about his life, including his date of birth, although it is known that he was active in Duluth in the late 1880s and 1890s. Many of his paintings are marine views along the wild and rocky North Shore of Lake Superior and of ships on the Great Lakes, and it is believed he may have been a sailor in early life. Lunds work shows a keen observation of nature and a visually poetic interpretive tendency. He died in 1902. Beaver Bay, 1869, is a work Mrs. James Lowry, whose birth and death dates, as well as much knowledge about her life, are unknown. She and her husband came to Beaver Bay in 1870 and her husband was the teacher for two years. It is a prime example of an artistic treasure hidden in the Societys collection. This beautiful painting captures a moment in history when two cultures began coexisting and colliding, despite the peaceful look portrayed in the encampment of the combined houses and wigwams. An intriguing aspect of this painting is that Mrs. Lowry apparently painted very similar original oil which is now owned by the Lake County Historical Society. Feodor von Luerzers paintings Sequoia Forest in California and another painting given the same title (by whom being unclear), both completed in 1904, are the work of an Austrian immigrant landscape artist born in 1851, whose family had German nobility conferred upon them and who was educated as a young man to become an Austrian army officer. He arrived in Milwaukee in 1886, having been recruited by the American Panorama Company there, to assist in painting a cyclorama, one of the huge panoramic

paintings of historical events and spectacular views that were a fashionable form of entertainment in the late nineteenth century. He arrived in Duluth in 1889 at the end of an extended canoe trip on the Great Lakes. He soon established himself as a professional artist in Duluth and remained for 19 years. During this time also became friends with John Fery, fellow Austrian and painter. He married Ella Brautigam, whose father had established Duluths first amusement park, between London Road and the lakeshore, from 29th to 31st Avenue East. The couple continued von Luerzers adventures, moving through the Dakotas on horseback and traveling by train through Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California. The couple moved to Coeur dAlene, Idaho, considered by von Luerzer to be the most beautiful and inspiring place he had ever seen, in 1908. The artist died in Spokane, Washington, in 1913. Bernie Quick, born in 1913 in Proctor, Minnesota, established the Grand Marais Art Colony in 1947 after being released from military service in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He taught at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for 32 years. His work was created in striking, bold strokes and generally portrays outdoor scenes fed by the rhythms of nature. His style has been described as mystical realism. He won a Tiffany scholarship as a student of Denfeld High School and moved to Woodstock, New York. He pursued formal training at Vesper George Art School of Boston. As part of the Tiffany award, Bernie Quick spent several summers in the Tiffany House on Long Island, painting. Quick was also an avid trout fisherman, often combining painting and fishing in his frequent jaunts by canoe into the north woods. The Society is displaying Miner and Lumberjack, both completed in 1938 and both examples of WPA/New Deal art. The Society will have on exhibition Harbor at Dusk by John Fery, 1859 1934. Fery was born into a prominent and wealth Austrian family. He was educated in Vienna, Dusseldorf, and Munich. He visited America frequently beginning in 1886, living and painting on the East Coast for five years. He also conducted tours and hunting trips for European nobility in the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest. He was employed as an artist by the Great Northern Railroad and the Oregon Journal. He also lived in Milwaukee for two periods. He moved to the state of Washington and is buried there on Orcas Island. Many of Ferys paintings were done on a grand scale, as large as 10 x 12 feet, but the smaller works are still sought by collectors for their vivid rendering of the Western landscape. The artist was very prolific, with very apparent enthusiasm for the unspoiled wilderness of the western U.S. Whalebacks Loading Ore at the Duluth Ore Docks and Whaleback Ship, 1891, by Howard Freeman Sprague, are the work of an artist about whom little is known except that he died of tuberculosis at age 28. In addition to being considered masterpieces by maritime artists, they also provide a record of shipping vessels in operation on Lake Superior during that historical period. Frances Lee Jaques became a preeminent early 20th century American wildlife painter, whose work helped create an awareness that inspired the environmental movement. He was born in Illinois in 1887, moving with his family to Aitkin, Minnesota in 1903, by covered wagon. He was often referred to as Master Artist of the Wild. He worked in

oils, watercolors, drawings and sculpture, as well as his famous scratchboard drawings. The Society is fortunate in owning six of these works, two of which are on long-term loan to the Kitchi Gammi Club. Another large diorama is on long-term loan to one of the Societys affiliated Iron Range historical organizations, the Minnesota Museum of Mining in Chisholm. The diorama is the landscape backdrop to running model trains. The Jaques Art Center in Aitkin, Minnesota holds a large number of Jacques works of art, including two owned by the Society. Jaques worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, beginning in 1924, when one of his first jobs was to paint the dome of the old Hall of Birds. Jaques and his wife Florence collaborated in the production of a number of books. They traveled to such places as Panama, the Galapagos, Alaska and the Arctic, the Bahamas, England, and Switzerland. as well as Ely, Minnesota. He also illustrated over forty books, including three by well known Minnesotan ecologist, wilderness author and champion of the BWCA, Sigurd Olson. Jaques lived and worked in Duluth for a short period of time until WWI broke out and he served in the army, after which he returned to Duluth for a time. In 1953 Frances and Lee Jaques moved back to North Oaks, Minnesota, and in 1969 Jacques died. According to his wife, Space was dominant in his workhe gave life to a bird or animal so it seemed to move in its environment. In any medium that Lee used, the integration of subject and environment is total. Two of the artists later creations, Cold Morning, ca. 1966, and Mills of the Gods Grind Slowly, 1968, represent the Societys Jaques collection in the November 16th Art Unveiled event. Jaques provided the cover artwork for the Zenith, a monthly catalogue publication of the Marshall Wells Hardware Company, from July 1923 through January 1924. Walter Beach Humphrey is known to be the artist who created the covers for this publication in April and August 1915 and from July 1916 through June 1923. The Society owns the original paintings (Zeus and Woman with Washing Machine, descriptively titled) and these also will be exhibited at the November event. Three works by Eastman Johnson from the Societys collection (all Ojibwe-themed art created by Johnson while he was in this region 1856 1857, consisting of charcoal drawings, oil paintings, and pastels) will be exhibited for the event. Ojibwe Women (oil painting), Ojibwe Youth (charcoal), and Kay be sen day way We Win (charcoal). Johnsons work is important as it documented Ojibwe life in Grand Portage and what was then called the Head of the Lakes (now Duluth-Superior) in a realistic (largely nonidealized) and respectful way. In other words, he treated his Ojibwe portraiture subjects in the same manner as his white subjects, and did not add romantic elements to the portrayals of groups and dwellings. The charcoal drawings are quite fragile, and exhibit of them must necessarily be quite limited. The Society has the book Eastman Johnsons Lake Superior Indians for sale ($12.95) as a compact reference about Johnsons art and life, particularly during his time in this region.

A contemporary Ojibwe artist, Jackie Jensen Dingmann, created Smoking Fish in Bena, 1985, a pastel. Former Society Director Larry Sommer, who acquired the work during his service as Director, termed Dingmanns work the finest and most faithful contemporary Ojibwe series and a fitting complement to the Eastman Johnson collection. The artist and her husband worked as a team in documenting the life of northern Minnesota Indians, in traditional settings, both ceremonial and rustic. Dingmann died in 1989. Driftwood, 1940, is an example of another contemporary Ojibwe artist, George Morrison, who was born in Chippewa Village on the North Shore in 1919. The only member of his family (that included 11 siblings) to finish high school, Morrison also won a scholarship to the Minneapolis School of Art and another scholarship to study at the Art Students League in New York City. He subsequently traveled through Europe on a Fulbright Fellowship and later taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Minnesota. Like much of his work this piece is subtly colorful and abstract, and also shows the impact of nature. Morrison once observed that an aspiring artist needed not only the resources of his roots, but also a looking at the world in a broad sense. Flowering Cactus, date unknown, represents the work of Paul Van Ryzin in this exhibition. (Here again, it is unclear whether this title was given to the work by the artist or by the Historical Society staff member accessioning it.) Born in 1889 in Appleton, Wisconsin, Van Ryzin graduated from the Chicago Art Institute and taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth, University of Wisconsin, Superior and the Duluth Art Institute. He died in 1980. Aftermath of War and Rite of Spring are two works by Charles St. Pierre, a painter associated with Duluth, New York, and Chicago, where his murals decorate the Chicago Tribune building. The two paintings are very different in subject and tone though quite similar in style. St. Pierre was born in Motley, Minnesota, and his brother Meda was art director at the Duluth News Tribune. His work has been described as chiefly concerned with light, color and aerial tones, with suggestions of the flicker of movement. St. Pierre died in Chicago in 1945, at age 49. Also in the more famous category are two works by American landscape artist Gilbert Munger. Born in 1837 in Connecticut, Munger began his career at 14 as an engraver for the Federal government. After serving in the Civil War, he opened a studio in New York City, and later spent three years painting wilderness country scenery in the Rockies, British Columbia, and the Yosemite Valley. Lake Marian, Humboldt Range, Nevada, 1872 is an example of work from this period. Pond with Trees (near Poissy) date unknown - originated in Mungers long residence abroad, in England, France, and Italy., which began in 1876. Mungers connection with Duluth is through his brother, Roger, who arrived here in 1869, when there were only twelve (white) families inhabiting Duluth, is sometimes referred to as its founder. Munger Terrace, built by Roger, and the Board of Trade Building, in which he was instrumental in building, are still standing.

Gilbert Munger was extremely prolific, working from 16 18 hours a day. His work was praised by European art critics and collected by European museums and patrons, yet he died virtually unknown in this country in 1903. His work was been described as having a poetic quality, with enormous energy, and suggesting an earlier belief in the divinity of nature. He had wide ranging abilities in many genres. He is buried in Duluth, in a vault in Forest Hills cemetery. David Ericson, born in Sweden in 1869 is another famous painter whose work will be represented in the Societys exhibition on November 16th. Sailboats (date unknown), Sieur du Lhut, 1920 30, and Duluth Waterfront Scene, a watercolor painted in 1882 when Erickson was 13 and the earliest surviving Erickson painting, are the three works chosen. The family emigrated to Duluth in 1872. At age 11 Davids right leg was amputated, due to an infection; he was bedridden for two years and this is when he began a serious pursuit of his art, although he had shown interest at age seven. At 18 he went to the Art Students League in York, where he befriended writer Stephen Crane. He then studied in Europe under James Whistler and Rene Francois Prinet. In 1914 he returned to Provincetown, Massachusetts and then returned to Duluth after the death of his wife, Susan (Barnard). Many notable Duluthians were painted by Ericson, such as Clara and Chester Congdon. Coastal areas, including Lake Superiors Minnesota North Shore, served as subjects for his paintings, as well. St. Georges Serbian Orthodox Church in Gary (Duluth) is the home of Iconastas, 1944, as a series of 24 icons done in a faintly Byzantine style, yet with somewhat muted colors. The artists mother was a member of Gloria Dei Church in Duluth, and he did a large oil painting for their altar, The Ascension, 1905, in memory of her. The St. Louis County Historical Society now owns this piece and its ornate framework. From 1922 - 23, Ericson composed a cycle of six murals depicting seminal American historical moments which artistically connect the allegorical works of the 1890s and the populism of the New Deal. They were placed in the lobby of the Hibbing High School, in the heart of the Iron Range sometimes described as the castle in the wilderness- to ensure that students and townspeople would enter through a painted pageant of Americana. The education of the immigrant population to American standards and ideals was the intention of the Hibbing Board of Education to accomplish through this project. David Erickson died in 1946 when he was struck by a car in Duluth. Five months before, he had made the statement: Retirement? Michelangelo and Titian both painted until they were about ninety. Death is the only retirement. He had still been teaching at 78 at the Duluth Art Institute, up until the time of his death. Herman Melheim is best known to Depot visitors as the creator of the ornately carved wood furniture on permanent display in the Societys Fesler Gallery. Melheim was born in Norway in 1891, emigrating from there and arriving in Hanska, Minnesota, in 1915.

He also worked in ink, pencil and charcoal; two of his drawings are on exhibit: Lovers, 1936, and a drawing of Melheims home in Ray, Minnesota, on Lake Kabetogama, near International Falls, date unknown. Melheim died at age 98 in 1990. In addition to all of these artists, the work of Eleanor Stanley, May Coniff Frost, Walter Beach Humphrey, Eusebe J. Blais, A. J. Gulliksen, and W. H. Hearding will be on exhibit. Guests will be invited to add their knowledge of the art and the artists. Please plan to join us for this exciting event. Call us for details, beginning the last week of October, at 218-733-7586, or email history@thehistorypeople.org, or watch our website: www.thehistorypeople.org. Word count: 2712 August 5, 2011