Ernest Dewey Albinson (March 9, 1898 in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

– 1971 in

Jalisco, Mexico Jalisco, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Jalisco, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in western Mexico and is bordered by s ...

) was an American artist. Minnesota historian Theodore Christian Blegen called him "a gifted painter of North Shore scenes."

Early life and education

Albinson was the son of Swedish immigrant parents. He studied at the

Minneapolis School of Art The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is a private college specializing in the visual arts and located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MCAD currently enrolls approximately 800 students. MCAD is one of just a few major art schools to offer ...

in 1919, and at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

on a scholarship. He lived in France from 1923 to 1925.

Career

He was the director and teacher at the Saint Paul School for Art, from 1926 to 1929. From 1929 to 1931, he lived in Italy, then moved to New York in 1932. In 1933, he worked for the

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal work-relief program that employed professional artists to create sculptures, paintings, crafts and design for public buildings and parks during the Great Depression in the United States. The ...

, and in 1934 his painting ''Northern Minnesota Mine'' was exhibited at the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art is a former art museum in Washington, D.C., that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Founded in 1869 by philanthropist William Wilson Corco ...

, and toured the country. He was a project director for the Minnesota State Department of Education, from 1935 to 1937. He painted murals for post offices in

Cloquet, Minnesota Cloquet ( ) is a city in Carlton County, Minnesota, United States, at the junction of Interstate 35 and Minnesota State Highway 33. Part of the city lies within the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation and serves as one of the reservation's three ...

, and

Marquette, Michigan Marquette ( ) is the county seat of Marquette County, Michigan, Marquette County and the largest city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States. Located on the shores of Lake Superior, Marquette is a major port known primarily for shippin ...

. He was president of the Minnesota Art Association from 1937 to 1938. From 1939 to 1941, he lived in

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. From the 1920s to the 1940s, he would frequently spend summers in

Grand Portage, Minnesota Grand Portage is an unorganized territory in Cook County, Minnesota, United States, on Lake Superior, at the northeastern corner of the state near the border with northwestern Ontario. The population was 616 at the 2020 census. The unincorpora ...

painting scenes of the Lake Superior North Shore and the local

Ojibwe The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...

culture. One frequent subject was a gnarled cedar tree on the lakeshore, known by local Indians as "Spirit Little Cedar Tree." Albinson, however, titled his first painting in his series ''Witch Tree,'' and so it has also become known by that name. After returning to Minnesota, he moved to

Stockton, New Jersey Stockton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, Hunterdon County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The borough sits on the Delaware River at the western end of Amwell Valley. As of the 2020 United States census, the ...

(to live near his friend, painter B.J.O. Nordfeldt), and finally to Nayarit,

in 1953. His work is in the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

San Diego Museum of Art The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine art museum in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. It opened as the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego on February 28, 1926, and changed ...

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the List of largest art museums, largest ar ...

University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) is one of the largest university art museums in the United States, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with . Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alu ...

, and

Frederick R Weisman Art Museum Weisman Art Museum is an art museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1934 as University Gallery, the museum was originally housed in an upper floor of the university's Northrop Auditorium. In 1993, the museum ...

References

External links

"Oral history interview with Dewey Albinson, 1965 Oct. 27"
''

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

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Dewey Albinson
artnet.com
Dewey (Ernest Dewey) Albinson - BiographyProfile, Dewey AlbinsonE. Dewey Albinson: Northern Minnesota Mine, 1934Painting of Dewey Albinson by Frances Cranmer Greenman
1898 births 1971 deaths Artists from Minneapolis Minneapolis College of Art and Design alumni 20th-century American painters American male painters Public Works of Art Project artists Section of Painting and Sculpture artists Painters from Minnesota American muralists American people of Swedish descent 20th-century American male artists {{US-painter-1890s-stub