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Wedin, Elof (1901–1983)

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Black and white photograph of Elof Wedin, 1958.

Elof Wedin, 1958.

Elof Wedin was a Swedish-born Minnesota painter active from the 1920s to the 1970s and best known for his abstract geometric style.

On June 28, 1901, Wedin was born near the town of Härnösand in the central Swedish province of Ångermanland. In 1920, he immigrated to the United States and made his way to Minneapolis.

Like other young artists in the Twin Cities, Wedin was unable to study art full time and so began his career by taking night classes at the Minneapolis School of Art. During the day, he worked as a laborer, covering pipes with asbestos.

In 1926, Wedin spent a semester at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before returning to Minnesota and his day job. On July 5, 1929, he was the subject of a front-page article in the Minneapolis Morning Tribune that stressed the compelling contrast between his job covering pipes and his life as an artist.

Wedin participated in his first major exhibitions in 1926, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Minnesota State Fair. After a decade of showing his work, he boosted his status as an artist in November 1936 when he showed twenty paintings at the Hudson Walker Gallery. This show, in the prestigious and gallery-laden district of midtown Manhattan, was a step up even from the best galleries in Minnesota. Although no works sold, the show’s reviews were positive and from well-known publications such as the New York Times and ARTnews. During his career, Wedin had several solo shows, including another at the Hudson Walker Gallery and seven in Minneapolis (five at the Harriet Hanley Gallery; one at the Kilbridge-Bradley Gallery; and one at the Walker Art Center).

Like many other Minnesota artists of his time, Wedin painted in the American Regionalist style, sometimes tinged with his own version of geometric abstraction. In the 1948 work Beaver Bay, Wedin paints a standard landscape scene of Lake Superior, with slightly tilted and oddly proportioned shapes hinting at a more abstract treatment.

Wedin is best known, however, for his more modernist works. At the very beginning of his career, Wedin showed the influence of modernism in works inspired by European masters like Paul Cezanne and the Italian modernist Amedeo Modigliani. As Wedin developed as an artist, his style evolved. His movement towards abstraction is evident in two other works, both also called Beaver Bay. In Beaver Bay (1935), boats, buildings, docks, trees, and water jumble together in a pile of shapes and lines. A similar use of line, shape, and especially color shows up in Beaver Bay (1949).

Wedin’s use of jagged lines and interlocking planes of color is found in many of his works. In Self-Portrait (1939), his face and clothing jut toward the top of the frame, making it a different work than a portrait like his Wife and Son. Many of his works from the 1950s and 1960s are fully abstract. Boats and Fish Houses, Norway barely hints at the shape of a fishing shack, and Kinetic Rhapsody and Summer Landscape are simply strong lines of color. His career was not a progression from realism to abstraction but a decades-long mix of various styles.

Wedin died in Minneapolis on February 28, 1983.

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“Art: Out of Town Galleries Follow Customers to New York.” News-Week, December 12, 1936.

Anderson, Wayne. Elof Wedin 1960–1962. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1963.

D. B. “American Boiler-worker Builds Well Upon Cezanne.” ARTnews 37, no. 40 (September 16, 1939): 14.

DeVree, Howard. “A Reviewer’s Notebook: Brief Comment on Newly Opened Group and One-Man Exhibitions in Galleries Variety by Contemporaries.” New York Times, May 30, 1937.

——— . “Birds Before the Dawn: Brief Comment on Newly Opened Shows Which Herald the Season to Come.” New York Times, September 10, 1939.

Hiebert, Gareth (Oliver Towne). “State Artist Wedin Has World Acclaim.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, February 4, 1979.

Sinclair, John F. “Everybody’s Business.” Minneapolis Morning Tribune, July 5, 1929.

Szott, Brian. “Elof Wedin (1901–1983): Blue Collar Modernist.” In Minnesota Modern: Four Artists of the Twentieth Century, by Moira F. Harris, Brian Szott, and Ben Gessner, 140–177. St. Paul: Afton Press, 2015.

Related Images

Black and white photograph of Elof Wedin, 1958.
Black and white photograph of Elof Wedin, 1958.
"Portrait of Boy," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1931.
"Portrait of Boy," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1931.
"Back in Sweden," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1935.
"Back in Sweden," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1935.
"Wife and Son," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1935.
"Wife and Son," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1935.
"Beaver Bay," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1935.
"Beaver Bay," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1935.
"Beaver Bay," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1948.
"Beaver Bay," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1948.
"Beaver Bay," oil on canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1949.
"Beaver Bay," oil on canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1949.
"Self Portrait," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1950."
"Self Portrait," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1950."
"Kinetic Rhapsody," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1962.
"Kinetic Rhapsody," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1962.
"Boats and Fish Houses," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1963–1967.
"Boats and Fish Houses," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1963–1967.
"Upper Lakes Dam and Spillway," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1967.
"Upper Lakes Dam and Spillway," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1967.
"Summer Landscape," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1967.
"Summer Landscape," oil-on-canvas painting by Elof Wedin, 1967.

Turning Point

In November 1936, Wedin shows twenty paintings at the Hudson Walker Gallery. The show receives positive reviews from national publications.

Chronology

1901

Elof Wedin is born in Sweden’s Ångermanland province on June 28.

1920

Wedin immigrates to Minneapolis.

1921

Wedin begins taking night classes at the Minneapolis School of Art.

1924

Wedin exhibits at the Fine Arts Exhibition at the Minnesota State Fair.

1925

Wedin exhibits at the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Twelfth Annual Art Exhibition of Minneapolis Artists. He receives second place in the drawing category for a work titled Old Lady.

1926

Wedin begins part-time studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

1929

On July 5, Wedin is the subject of a front page article in the Minneapolis Morning Tribune.

1933

Wedin receives funding from the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), a precursor to the Federal Art Project (FAP.) He works on two projects: documenting logging at Itasca State Park and painting scenes of the University of Minnesota campus.

1933

In the summer, Wedin exhibits twelve paintings of Sweden in a solo show at the Minnesota State Fair.

1936

In November, Wedin has his first solo show at the Hudson Walker Gallery in Manhattan.

1963

A solo show of Wedin’s works is held in the Walker Art Center.

1983

Wedin dies on February 28.

2014

In November, two exhibitions are held of Wedin’s work. The Minnesota Historical Society hosts “Minnesota Modern: Four Artists of the Twentieth Century." The Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts holds “Elof Wedin: A Minnesota Modern."