Lot 175: Jemne, Elsa Laubach

Jemne, Elsa Laubach Minnesota (1887-1974) FRUIT AND SHELL STILL LIFE oil on board, framed signed & dated: lower right, 1938 H16" W20" *Artist biography: Portraitist, landscape painter, muralist, and illustrator Elsa Laubach Jemne was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on July 7, 1887, and grew up there. She studied for two years at the St. Paul Art Institute, then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1912-1915. She won the Emlin T. Cresson Award, which enabled her to study fresco painting in Italy in 1914. World War I blocked the continuance of her studies in 1915. She returned to St. Paul, living there with architect Magnus Jemne, her husband, whom she married in 1917, until her death on June 26, 1974. She first painted in the West in 1925 and 1926. She was commissioned by the Great Northern Railroad to paint portraits of Blackfoot Indians like Little Plume, Many Tail Feathers, Mrs. Curly Bear, and Lazy Boy. She lived amidst their lodges in a large tepee. Jemne also painted many commissioned portraits in Chicago and St. Paul. Jemne painted oils and watercolors of the Rocky Mountains during trips in the 1920s and 1930s, illustrated children's books in the 1930s and 1940s, and taught painting at the Minneapolis School of Art from 1946-1950. She painted murals for the Stearns County Courthouse, St. Cloud, Minnesota, 1922 (a 16 x 13-foot painting of aborigines); and subjects like "Wilderness," 1940, and "Iron Ore Mines, Ely, Nevada," 1941, for two Ely, Minnesota, post offices. Her work may be found in the collection of the Montana Historical Society, Helena. Jemne had one-person exhibitions in 1957 at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and, in 1961, at the Women's City Club, St. Paul. Group exhibitions included the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; St. Paul Institute; Northwest Artists, St. Paul; Minnesota State Fair, Hamline; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Grand Central Art Galleries, New York; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Springville Museum of Art, Utah; Midwestern Artists, Kansas City, Missouri; and Joslyn Memorial Museum, Omaha. Reference works listing Elsa Jemne include: Who Was Who in American Art; Who's Who in American Art 1959-1962; Fielding; Petteys; American Women; Mahoney, Latimer, & Flomsbee; St Cloud Times, Sep 23, 1922, Jan 19, 1925, Sep 7, 1934; Judith Gap Journal (Montana), Nov 27, 1925; St Paul Pioneer Press, Nov 14, 1943, Jun 29, 1974; Minneapolis Star, Aug 21, 1960; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, AAA reel 4317, P56; Minneapolis Historical Collection, Minneapolis Public Library; Montana Historical Society files; US Census 1900, Ramsey County, Minnesota, ED 111, pg 10; death cert; St Paul CD; K J Strumpf (daughter), 1975, 1993; E Emerson (Woodmere Art Gallery, Philadelphia), 1975; D Hemse (Office of Stearns County Coordinator, St. Cloud, MN), 1992.