click to enlarge

Christian Petersen Pleased that Students Take Interest in Art
Tribune photo published September 29, 1950

Surrounded by many of the works of art which he has created, Christian Petersen, associate professor in the applied arts division at Iowa State college is pointing out some changes that Beatrice Ann Smith, graduate student from Oskaloosa, should make in her clay model.  Petersen, nationally known in his own right as a sculptor, teaches students of home economics and landscape architecture values of perspective as they learn to appreciate and visualize third dimensional planes more fully through sculptural studies.

Petersen, an associate professor in applied art, has been teaching at Iowa State college since 1937.  Although his special interest is sculpting, he teahes students of landscape architecture or home economics majors fundamentals of form through his art courses.  He gives them work with clay to "help them know and see things in the third dimension."

It has been especially interesting for him to see science and agriculture students taking an interest in art.  He had not expected them to be concerned with art, but they are interested, and he likes to see that sort of thing.  He does not expect that they will become great artists, but a full appreciation of art by his students pleases Petersen a great deal.

The studio to which Christian Petersen came to at Iowa State in 1934 was a part of the Veterinary Quadrangle.  It's floor would support the heavy stone blocks he worked with and the room had the height and breadth he required.  He worked here for his entire time at the University.  When, after years of working and teaching in this setting, Christian was asked why he had chosen the Midwest as his spiritual and physical home.  He said, "I figured I could reach people here... I have always tried to go my own way and to bring what I could to the people here where we could start a culture.  I have always maintained that if we wanted to have a true American art it had to start in the Midwest, and that was my reason for staying."  (Christian Petersen, Sculptor, ISU Press) - The Christian Petersen Art Museum at Morrill Hall opens March 22. -

Out in the main room stands an imposing model Petersen is now working on for St. Francis Xavier school at Dyersville.  It shows that Spanish jesuit holding a cross high above his head in his right hand.  The left hand holds a book near his waist.  The medium for the model is brown clay.  The statue is of heroic proportion, standing some 15 feet high.  Petersen said that a base with three panels would complete the work.  Completed it will rise nearly 20 feet.  The figure itself will be just under 14 feet high - since there is shrinkage of an inch to the foot between the completed figure and the model.  The figure will stand on the six-foot high base, and with this perspective will provide a tremendous and spiritual impact by its simple grandeur.

Asked about work on it, Petersen said he began actual shaping of the huge mass of clay last spring after classes were over.  The small model on which he copies the large figure was already completed.  Working on the huge statue from a special stair step ladder that rises up beside it, Petersen can change position readily to apply or shape the clay, as well as change his view of any particular plane. He describes it as “my vacation project,” as his blue eyes twinkle ever so little.

A tall sandy-haired man, his hands are powerful without being heavy.  Although much sculpting is done with clay or plaster, yet the process is one that ultimately is a difficult and wearing physical task.  Petersen has replaced the older hammer and chisel of classic sculpture with machine-age equivalents-a pneumatic air hammer and chisel.  And his hands and body still absorb considerable vibration from the process of removing chips of plaster, limestone, or whatever medium he is working.

“I used a three-pound hammer and chisel to accomplish the break-down earlier,” he explained.  “Now I use this pneumatic hammer.  There is a heavy gun, and a lighter one for more careful work.  One has to watch not to take off too much,” he added.  After half an hour or so of using the pneumatic hammer there is a good reason for his arm to become slightly numb.  His arm and shoulder absorb much of the steady series of explosions, and yet shove the vibrating chisel into the surface, always directing it toward shaping his intended forms.  Added to this is the dust that is blown into the air, and the constant rattling noise of the machine.  After six or seven years of this machine-age sculpting there is a good chance that the noise has affected his hearing, somewhat.

On shelves surrounding the walls of the small classroom are many busts, or “sketches” as he calls them.  Some are the efforts of students, but most of them are Petersen’s.  Each is a special story in itself.  One is that of a Phillippino woman.  Her full open countenance is one of true beauty without mere prettyness.  Petersen said that it was a four hour job that he had done on the spur of the moment before she left for San Francisco to go back to the Phillippine islands.

Another is of Jens Jensen, a well known landscape architect.  One sketch is of Stephen Vincent Benet, the poet, and was modeled for a demonstration before an audience.  Petersen remembers him as being most cooperative during his sitting.  He does such demonstrations “occasionally” and performs them more as a courtesy than as a pleasant procedure.

He is frequently disappointed by works of younger present-day sculpters and artists.  Yet, he doesn't tend to blame them, but their elder.  There is too much sophistication - or at least false sophistication - surrounding schools of art these days.  As a result an unhealthy atmosphere develops where groups of talented young artists are forced to produce too rapidly.  They are motivated by short range desires to gain attention or quick money and as a result do not produce as careful works as they might.  They tend to concentrate on the shocking, morbid, and sensual phases of human experience accenting it out of all proportion to its importance.  And part of this is the result of the older generation's lack of emphasis on discipline.

Many of the characteristics of Petersen's art probably arise out of his country background.  He was born in Denmark, and came to the United States when he was nine.  His first art training was in the Newark Technical school.  St. John Harper, a painter, was a teacher there, and "perhaps as good an influence on me, as an artist, as I have had."  He also attended Fawcett Art school, and studied at the Old Art Students league for a while.  Harper was one of the founders of the league.  He received valuable help from Henry Hudson Kitson when he studied sculpting in Boston.

Petersen learned the engraver’s art early, and for several years supported himself in this profession.  He worked out from that into sculpting, but did no professional sculpture until he was 31 or 32.  He went into it, instead of painting, because he felt it offered more challenge than painting.
He taught and worked professionally in Massachusetts and New Jersey for nearly 15 years.  Then came a trip that was to change his career in one respect, for the rest of his life, that was a trip to Iowa on a special commission to make a portrait for a medal for the Banker’s Life company.  He was attracted by the openness of the country and the lack of crowds in Iowa.  He went back to the East, but before long he returned, and has since made his permanent residence here.

Living in the Mid-west has probably been a strong influence on the meaning which Petersen works into the lines of clay and stone and plaster figures in Ames, and throughout the United States.  The simplicity and openness of the broad prairies are reflected in the clean lines of his men and women.  They are sturdy, vigorous, keenly-physical people with full appreciation of the bounty of the land.

One bit of satire which Petersen has done could only come from one who lived in the Mid-west and knows the impulse of its life.  It is untitled, and could have at least two interpretations.  It stands but a foot high.  He has placed it back on a shelf surrounded by other small works of students and his own.  He should display it.

A wonderfully great draft horse in the Clydesdale or Percheron power class is shown.  At his left shoulder is a man attempting to place a wing at the mythological shoulder joint of a Pegasus.  On the ground is another wing, which attached would complete the comedy.  The horse, full-bellied, great limbed, planted firmly to the earth, has turned to cast a curious eye at this grand fool.

Two figures that stand out are a corn picker bent in labor of the exact moment that he grasps the ear to snap it from the stalk, and a man with a calf.  Both are Iowa, both Mid-west, both are agriculture.  They will be in the Sheldon-Munn hotel lobby when completed.  The corn picker is frozen action of hard labor.  Petersen has caught a split moment of labor and drudgery, translating it into terms that have meaning for all who see it.  He stored the memory in his mind one day a few years ago when he was watching a corn husking contest.  The man he picked by chance to observe went on to win the state husking title.

Statues of Mary and the boy Jesus and St. Joseph, originally in the chapel of St. Cecilia Convent,
are now in the chapel at the new St. Cecilia Church.

Beside teaching duties, and finishing St. Francis Xavier, Petersen has a project that “should have been started 25 years ago.”  It is a series of figures which reflects life at Iowa State college.   He got the idea three or four years ago.  In the two years that he has been working on the figures at all, he has completed three, all women.  One is reclining on her stomach.  The other two are sitting with school books in their hands.

In the halfway stage are a boy and a girl reading together.  There is still much to do.  He has the idea for one figure which will crystallize all the currents of college life in one, but has not started on it yet.  He must create this between classes and working nights – whenever he can snatch an hour from other duties.  It is relentless pursuit.

During his career he has sculpted governors, celebrities and educators as well as worked at various other projects.  But on the table lay a letter with something entirely new and challenging.  Some crackpot had written asking him to design an ash tray that could be worn on the coat lapel.  “I’m not even going to bother answering it,” he chuckled.