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Peter Wedin (1894-1980)

 

Peter Wedin and his better known brother, Elof Wedin, were both artists and residents of Minnesota.  Peter Wedin’s art form was primarily wood-relief, which is carving a picture in wood to give it a raised affect and then painting it. This medium is considered Folk Art.

 

Wedin studied portrait and landscape painting at the Hermods Correspondence Institute in Sweden. He immigrated to America in 1923 and worked as a woodcarver for a furniture factory in Minneapolis from 1923 to 1930. After 13 years spent in Montreal, Wedin returned to Minneapolis in 1943. He lived with his wife, Elsa, and his daughters at 4330 James Ave. N. in Minneapolis and worked at a trade in order to support himself as a painter and a woodcarver. 

 

He visited Sweden four times and once exhibited his woodcarvings in Karlskoga.  His artwork was also shown at such places as the Chicago Swedish Club and Swedish-American Artist’s Association exhibitions. In addition, he participated in the Scandinavian-American Artists Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1926 and at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis.  One of his works graces the cover of the book “Swedes in the Twin Cities.”

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