Cooler but still well above normal this week

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Leopold Chamberland, Farmer, Riviere-Quelle, Quebec, 1977

black and white photograph by Fred Benedict Scheel

Director Colleen Sheehy was working with the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to borrow their collection of Fred B. Scheel's photographs for a show in Fargo-Moorhead. After all, Scheel is a Moorhead native and his family is a pillar in the community, so it was only right for the Plains to show his work.

Then Sheehy got a call informing her that wouldn't be necessary; the Scheel family had discovered a whole new set of photographs in Fred's basement darkroom when they had to evacuate it in the spring flood of 2009, and had decided to give this set of photographs to the Plains.

Sheehy couldn't be more thrilled. The 267 photographs include not only Scheel's fine work, but many of his colleagues - Ansel Adams, Andre Kertesz, Berenice Abbott and Brett Weston, among others.

Plains Art Museum Director Colleen Sheehy stands in a gallery full of photographs recently gifted to the museum.

 is synonymous with sporting goods, the family business.  The giant Scheel Allsports is the local equivalent of the Mall of America, containing an entire ferris wheel in it. While professional photographers are aware of Scheel's prowess with a camera, Sheey says many Fargo natives have yet to realize that he has been more than a local business leader.

Sheehy sees Fred Scheel as someone who was truly devoted to his art, even while he made a living at his sporting business. Born in 1921, Scheel is infirm but still with us, and has lived a full life.

Mt. Rundle, Sunrise, Vermilion Lakes, Canada, 1951

Sheehy says that while Scheel may not be as well known a photographer as his contemporaries, she sees that changing as his work makes its way into museums like the Plains and the MIA.

She says the gift of 267 photographs adds tremendously to the museum's ability to represent an important artist from the region and to tell the story of 20th century photography.

"The Frederick B. Scheel Photography Collection: A New Gift to the Plains" an exhibition displaying 67 of the 267 gifted photographs will be up at the Plains Art Museum through August 12, 2011. In March, the museum will rotate out some images and add others to the mix.

Arts and Culture

State of the Arts Blog

Marianne Combs

Author

The family of photographer Frederick B. Scheel has donated hundreds of photographs from his collection to the Fargo-Moorhead museum.

Plains Art Museum inherits work of native son

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox