Knute Heldner (1875 – November 5, 1952) was a

Swedish-American Swedish Americans () are Americans of Swedish descent. The history of Swedish Americans dates back to the early colonial times, with notable migration waves occurring in the 19th and early 20th centuries and approximately 1.2 million arrivi ...

artist.

Biography

Knute August Heldner was born in the village Vederslöv in

Växjö Municipality Växjö Municipality () is a municipality in Kronoberg County in southern Sweden, where Växjö is the seat. The municipality was created in 1971 by the amalgamation of the ''City of Växjö'' with the surrounding municipalities. The number of or ...

Kronoberg County Kronoberg County (; ) is a county or '' län'' in southern Sweden. Kronoberg is one of three counties in the province of Småland. It borders the counties of Skåne, Halland, Jönköping, Kalmar, and Blekinge. Its capital is the city of V ...

, Sweden in 1875; some sources say 1877, or 1886 (also giving his first name as "Sven"). His early formal training was at Karlskrona Technical School and the

Royal Swedish Academy of Arts The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts (), commonly called the Royal Academy, is located in Stockholm, Sweden. An independent organization that promotes the development of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other fine arts, it is one of seve ...

in Stockholm. He migrated to the United States around 1902 and trained at the

Minneapolis College of Art and Design 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 ...

Minneapolis 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 ...

. He lived in

Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

until 1934. He was married to Collette Pope Heldner (1902–1990) who was also a painter and his one time student from the Rachel McFadden Art Studio in Duluth. He won the gold medal at the

Minnesota State Fair The Minnesota State Fair is the state fair of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Also known by its slogan, "The Great Minnesota Get-Together", it is the largest state fair in the United States by average daily attendance and the second-largest state f ...

in 1915. In 1921 he exhibited his work in the Swedish American Artist's Association in the Swedish Club of Chicago. His style was modern

expressionistic Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

, derived from his training as an artist in Sweden. He was recognized for painting of

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

. His best paintings however were

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

s. His work entitled ''Bearers of burdens'' was turned into a print. Heldner and his wife eventually made their home in

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, returning to Minnesota during the summer. They were part of a loosely organized collective of 1920s New Orleans artists sometimes called the "French Quarter School" which catered to tourists interested in American history. He befriended playwright

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...

and helped him when the writer first came to New Orleans in 1938. Williams called Heldner "brilliant and very good-hearted", and said that Heldner's work may have been too avant-garde to have easy commercial potential: "They are very modernistic so are not popular as decoration for homes." He painted numerous views of the French Quarter over the course of his career, one of which, ''French Quarter Rooftops From His Studio'', is now in the

Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is a museum dedicated to art by artists from the southern United States in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was established in 1999. The building The Ogden museum is located in the Warehouse Arts District of downtown ...

. He worked for the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...

during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

. He also expanded into woodcarving. Knute Heldner died in 1952 in

Orleans Parish, Louisiana Orleans Parish (; ) is a parish of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Since 1870, the parish has been coextensive with the city of New Orleans, and the parish and city are largely governed as a single consolidated city. History On April 10, 180 ...

at 77.

The Times-Picayune ''The Times-Picayune , The New Orleans Advocate'' (commonly called ''The Times-Picayune'' or the ''T-P'') is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ancestral publications of other names date back to January 25, 1837. The cu ...

, 1952-11-07, Pg. 2 col. 7, Pg. 10 col. 1

References

Other sources

Collette Pope Heldner. Artists' BluebookKnute Heldner, Artists' Bluebook
* Louisiana State University Museum of Art brochure {{DEFAULTSORT:Heldner, Knute 1875 births 1952 deaths People from Växjö Municipality 19th-century Swedish painters 19th-century American male artists Swedish male painters 20th-century Swedish painters 20th-century American male artists 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters Swedish emigrants to the United States Federal Art Project artists 19th-century Swedish male artists 20th-century Swedish male artists