The Elof Wedin Biography

Elof Wedin, age 60

 Elof Wedin had a fifty-year career as an artist in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. After his death in 1983, a writer for the "St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch" wrote that he was "among the 'big five' of the Minnesota artists of his generation." While the major medium in his work was oil on canvas, pastel on velour carved wood and stainless steel were also used to express his ideas.

Wedin, whose style has been described as Expressive, was born in Harmosand, Angermanland, along the fjords of East Central Sweden in 1901. He immigrated to America in 1919, taking up residence in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Having a talent and compassion for art at a young age, he entered night school at The Minneapolis Institute of Art in the early 1920s.

In 1926, Elof entered the School of The Art Institute of Chicago to study under George Oberteuffer, a well-known teacher and artist of that period. Two years later, he returned to Minneapolis and took a job doing duct work and pipe coverings for boilers while pursuing his fine art. He began a history of exhibitions and one man shows receiving prizes and awards each and every year until the mid 1970s.

With a talent and interest in portraiture but with little demand for them in Minneapolis at that time, he did portraits of his own family members. Some of these "have often been compared to the portraits of Rembrandt for their somber mood and dark palette." (Szott) During the 1930s, his portraits became more modernist in style and with oval faces and elongated features resembled portraits of the Italian Amedeo Modigliani. Wedin's portraits of the 1940s, 50s and 60s are more Expressionistic and intimate, often dissolving into angular planes.

Wedin was also a landscape painter, an interest that was stirred in 1933 and was the subject of his entry in the 1934 Minnesota State Fair. He was a Works Progress Administration artist, which focused him on regionalism and depicting his immediate surroundings such as street scenes, small towns and the North Shore of Minnesota where he spent time. However, unlike many regionalists, he did views in a highly abstract geometric style. His landscapes of the 30s and 40s had flattened space with no perspective, minimal sky, and buildings shown only as angular shapes, and in the 1950s and 60s, his landscapes became increasingly Cubist.

During his career, Wedin received numerous awards from The Minneapolis Institute of Arts annual shows, The Minnesota State Fair Exhibitions, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Swedish-American Clubs of Minneapolis and Chicago, The Women's Club of Minneapolis, Hudson Walker Gallery of New York City, Walker Art Center of Minneapolis, San Francisco Exhibition, The First New York American Artist Exhibit and The Los Angeles County Exposition.

Wedin's numerous one-man shows included two at the Hudson Walker Gallery in New York City, three at The Harriet Hanley Gallery, Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, three at the Kilbride-Bradley Gallery in Minneapolis, MAA Gallery Minneapolis, Bethel College, Bjorkman Gallery, Minneapolis and others.

Elof also exhibited at the Rockefeller Center, New York City, San Francisco Worlds Fair, Swedish Club Detroit, Swedish Club Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, University of Minnesota, Los Angeles County Museum and Women's Club of Minneapolis.

Elof's work is represented in major private and institutional collections, such as those of: Walker Art Center, University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, Swedish Institute, and the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.

Written March, 2004 by the artist's son and daughter-in-law, Winslow and Carol Wedin, Boca Raton, Florida. A source is Brian Szott, Curator of Art, Minnesota Historical Society.