Johnson Heritage Post hosts John Spelman III exhibit

In the early 1940’s, paper in hand, John Spelman poses for a picture. When he was older, he came and taught art at I.S.D. 166. John was an enthusiastic art instructor and a great teacher. Photos courtesy of Tracey Cullen

The Cook County Historical Society is pleased to announce an upcoming exhibit at the Johnson Heritage Post on the life and artwork of John A. Spelman III. The exhibit will run from July 2 to September 5, with an opening-night reception on July 2, from 5:00–7:00 p.m.

One of Minnesota’s most notable artists, Spelman was an accomplished printmaker who spent much of his life in Grand Marais. Many Cook County residents have fond memories of the artist, remembering him as an eccentric character with tremendous talent. He taught art at Cook County High School for the last decade of his life, and made a lasting impression on his students. Jeanne Hedstrom, now a painter herself, remembered that “Mr. Spelman’s art room was an oasis.” Local artist Betsy Bowen says that she has long admired Spelman’s work, “in particular his skillful block prints of familiar buildings and places and scenes of the North Shore—he made the everyday appear beautiful and important.” Several Cook County residents contributed artwork by Spelman to this exhibit to supplement the Johnson Heritage Post’s permanent collection.

John created a wood block print of Hedstrom’s lumber camp adrift in snow. The logging camp no longer exists, nor do many of the fish houses he captured in his art.

Born in July 1912 in Oak Park, Illinois, Spelman often visited the North Shore as a boy, staying at the family’s summer cabin near Hovland. After graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1934, he headed east to the hills of Appalachia. There he found inspiration for his artwork, much as his father, a well-known oil painter, had before him. Woodcuts and linoleum block prints were the younger Spelman’s preferred medium, but he also produced pencil drawings and watercolors, and tried his hand at poetry, examples of which are shown in the exhibit.

From 1937 to 1941, Spelman taught art at the Pine Mountain Settlement School in Kentucky. Today a National Historic Landmark, the school was founded in 1913 to provide an education and boarding place for widely scattered students in the mountainous region of southeastern

Kentucky. While there, Spelman created a striking series of prints of rural cabins and homesteads, forty of which he collected in a book entitled At Home in the Hills. In the preface, he asks: “Where else can one find houses that so grow out of the soil, chimneys with so much unconscious beauty in their lines?” Exhibit curators Scott Husby and Tracey Cullen traveled to Kentucky to delve into the archives at Pine Mountain, Berea College, and the University of Kentucky, and discovered rich sources of artwork from the early part of Spelman’s life.

When he worked in Appalachia, Spelman created quite a few works depicting the people, houses and landscape.

In 1942, Spelman moved to Grand Marais and turned his attention to depicting life in our small North Shore community. Prints from his Minnesota years underline his continuing fascination with utilitarian structures and the lives they reflect. He was particularly interested in portraying rural landscapes and buildings, including structures such as fish houses and logging camps that no longer exist today. In this respect, Spelman contributed significantly to our understanding of the historical record of Cook County. He also produced iconic images of churches in the Arrowhead region, such as the Maple Hill Church and Trinity Lutheran Church in Hovland.

John Spelman died in October 1969, at the age of 57, and was buried in the Old Settlers’ Cemetery in Hovland. Birney Quick, one of the founders of the Art Colony in Grand Marais, memorialized the somber occasion in a powerful oil painting. A reproduction of this painting is included in the exhibit, along with many original prints, drawings, and watercolors by Spelman.

This exhibit was made possible by a generous grant from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation. To accompany the exhibit, a book by Husby and Cullen entitled John A. Spelman, Artist and Printmaker: From Appalachia to Minnesota’s North Shore will be available at the JHP and in local bookshops. All proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to the Cook County Historical Society.