Happy birthday, Charles Beck!

Charles Beck is one of Minnesota’s most recognized and treasured artists. His work depicts the rural landscapes that he often observed as an Otter Tail County native. He has worked with a variety of media ranging from sculpture, printmaking, and painting. Beck was born January 31, 1923 and is a descendant of Norwegian immigrants who came to the Fergus Falls area in the 1850s.

He started drawing in elementary school and studied under Cyrus Running at Concordia College. After graduating he took a break from academics to serve as a pilot in the Naval Air Force in the late 1940s. He went on to continue his studies at The University of Iowa, where he received his MFA.

He eventually returned to Fergus Falls working as a sign painter and then enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where he made his first woodblock print. From there he joined the staff at Minnesota State Community and Technical College and taught there for 27 years. Concordia granted him an Honorary Doctorate in 1980, and in 2006 honored Beck by naming the new gallery after him.

HPR reached out to his friends in the art community and asked them to let us know how Charles Beck and his work have inspired their careers in the arts.

“As for Charlie Beck, I've got dozens of memories, but perhaps my most vivid comes from when I first saw a print of his called The Search II. This was back in 1993. The Search shows a lonesome, one-room cabin in the middle of a flat prairie. The sky is bigger than the land. The color is melancholy; dark purples, blues, lavenders. There are no signs of the cabin's occupancy. Just the home itself, planted in the middle of the prairie. A symbol of refuge, shelter, defiance, and dream.

The Department of Philosophy at Concordia College bought the piece after seeing it at the Rourke. I remember thinking then that I'd never seen a work of art that so perfectly captured the philosopher's project. It's really one of the great existential masterpieces of our region. Of course, I don't think Charlie would see it like that. But that's how it moved me then. And the fact that I can recall perfectly the moment I first saw it says something powerful about Beck, both as an artist and as a thinker.”

--Peter Schultz, Director of the Longspur Prairie Fund, Moorhead, Minn.

“I was intrigued by Charlie because he is one of a handful of local artists that have flourished in a rural setting. His work is in the collection of major museums, he’s left his fingerprints all over the landscape of western Minnesota, and yet he’s done it from a modest garage studio in his hometown in Fergus Falls. Charlie has put Otter Tail County on the map, chronicled its moods and seasons. He’s the linchpin of an arts community here, a beloved teacher, and he was equally instrumental in community college, the Kaddatz Gallery and the Otter Tail County Historical Museum.

So with this interesting tension between a self-effacing laconic quintessential Minnesotan personality, and some very sophisticated thinking about the artistic process, I thought I could make a good film.

What I learned from that process is that Charlie doesn’t consider himself a landscape painter. He is a modernist. Like Joseph Albers, Sol LeWitt, Jackson Pollack, he’s interested in formal relationships of color and pattern. You can fall in love with his art as landscape, but that’s only the surface of what Charlie is doing, which is why his images have iconic power. The red barn behind the winter windbreak. A bevy of white wings lifting up from a November field. The shed with its long blue shadow. Just to simply list his body of work is to write poetry. He’d just tell you that when you live long enough, things tend to turn out.”

--Deb Wallwork, filmmaker and artist, Minneapolis, Minn.

“Charles Beck has had a large influence on the Rourke. James O'Rourke and Charles Beck were great friends for many years. Today the Rourke is very happy to have Charles Beck's work in the permanent collection. Currently a few of his pieces are in the "Show 1" exhibit. Personally, I love Charles Beck's work. I have the pleasure of having a couple of his pieces hanging in my office. His colorful landscapes of the area and imagery of birds can brighten any cold winter day or make me smile.”

--Trudy Sundquist, Programs Director at Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, Minn.

“I didn't get to meet Charlie until the opening of the Kaddatz Gallery in his honor. It was one of the most wonderful projects to be a part of. Everyone talked about Charlie and his work, and then his work started coming into the Gallery, I hadn't seen anything like his work before and was excited to meet Charlie and talk to him about his work and how he got started doing the wood-blocking. He was so kind and shared stories that I cherished, as did all those who knew him long before. He was proud to have his work here in the Kaddatz Gallery, where even more people would be able to see it and learn more about Charlie Beck.

He told me once that it was just a way he could get it out of his home and actually have a home.

He encouraged me to keep working on my painting and not to give up -- I had just started painting in 2007 -- that at some point I would know what my style would be, practice...practice…

Charlie has been a blessing to so many people in this community: all the students he taught that went on to become great artists because of his belief in them and his love for art; all the lives touched as a direct result of his art and his dedication to the arts in his own town.

I am the manager of the Kaddatz Artist Lofts for over 11 years now. I was able to see Charlie’s work and his commitment to the Kaddatz Gallery and its success...I guess what I'm saying is thank you Charlie, you’re AWESOME!”

--Karan Ouren, Kaddatz Artist Lofts manager, Fergus Falls, Minn.

“Charles Beck and his contemporaries brought Modernism to the midwest. They made it cool to be an artist in a rural Minnesota town and laid the groundwork for the rich arts community we have today.”

-Gretchen Boyum, Curator and Education Coordinator at Kaddatz Gallery, Fergus Falls, Minn.

“As a resident of the Kaddatz Artist Lofts I’ve had the great pleasure to display my photographs and paintings at Kaddatz Galleries. It’s a beautiful space for artists living in a small city to present work to the public. Since the front section always has a number of wonderful Charles Beck prints in rotation, one can always count on sharing the environment with one of the region’s truly great artists — it’s a special honor but also an ongoing challenge — inspiring me to do my very best to live up to such high standards. To be able to have my work associated with Charlie’s formidable reputation is a most generous gift.”

--Eric Santwire, Artist, Fergus Falls, Minn.

“Charles has been a role model to so many artists and has given artists in our region the ability to be successful because he has paved the road for us to be successful. He has always taken the time to listen, look and support artists with their work and give advice -- a true artist that wants the arts to thrive and to support others.”

--Naomi Schliesman, Artist Development Coordinator at Springboard for the Arts, Fergus Falls, Minn.

“I love Charlie Beck and his wife Joyce and their honorable way of living, and making where they are a center of art -- their home, his studio, his little home gallery. He absorbed the lessons of the big art world abstraction and brought it back home to give us new eyes to see the world around us on the prairie. When I drive through the landscape, I see it always as a Beck woodcut. He truly helped us to see. A true artist! bravo Charles Beck!”

--Colleen Sheehy, former director of Plains Art Museum and current Director of Public Art, Saint Paul, Minn.

“Because Charles Beck has lived and worked almost his entire life in this area, one is tempted to label him a regionalist. To me Charles Beck is a modernist, the best modern artist this area has produced. He uses the local landscape as his subject, but his first concern has always been with how a painting is constructed--its overall composition. His subject matter reflects his personal taste, but it is also his gateway to create something larger--through color, shape, texture, balance.

His work appeals to the general public largely because of its subject matter (Who hasn't driven by a plowed field and thought, "Beck!"--it almost seems like an example of life imitating art). But it also appeals to other artists because of its structure, its strong design element.

On a personal level, Charlie has been my teacher, mentor, and friend for 45 years. It's not out of line to call him my artistic father. When someone compliments me on my own art, they should really be thanking Charles Beck.”

--Scott Gunvaldson, Artist, Fergus Falls, Minn.