Aitkin’s Jaques Art Center Showcasing Work of Don Luce in ‘Northern Waters’

The Jaques Art Center in Aitkin is now showcasing the exhibit “Northern Waters” through Saturday, Feb. 24.

While the art center is best known for having one of the largest collections of original art by Francis Lee Jaques, this new exhibit features many works from artist Don Luce, who was a curator at the Bell Museum, the University of Minnesota’s natural history museum, in St. Paul for 43 years before retiring and pursuing his love of art.

Although Luce is paving his own path, he himself acknowledges how much Jaques’ work impacted his career, both as an artist and prior to that.

“I was really happy to see this develop,” said Luce. “And now, of course, you know, Jaques, over the years, I worked at the museum for over 40 years. And so Jaques’ artwork was always kind of an inspiration for me. And so to be able to have my artwork displayed with Jaques’ artwork is a real wonderful opportunity for me.”

Luce currently lives up north, but he originally grew up in New Jersey, and whenever he’d visit Manhattan, he’d also visit the New York Museum of Natural History, where many of Jacques’ pieces still reside.

“Probably one of the premier museums in the world, he ended up traveling on museum expeditions throughout the world, all in order to collect information about nature, about wildlife, and to combine that information creating these wildlife dioramas at the museum,” Luce said.

Even though Luce adopted many of Jaques’ artistic trademarks, such as utilizing the space a canvas provides, where the two differ is their art styles, as Luce decided to steer away from animal-centric pieces and find a new path.

“I’m not a wildlife painter,” explained Luce. “I’m really much more interested kind of exploring these sort of patterns in nature and the particular, more intimate views of water, particularly water.”

The art center is expecting crowds from both Aitkin and the Twin Cities to stop and view the scenery.

“Both with Don’s and with the Jaques paintings are showing the northwoods that we have up here in northern Minnesota,” said Jaques Art Center Treasurer Barden Heft. “And so that’s what I hope everybody goes away with, is appreciation for art and how fabulous the art is that he has done up here.”

The Jaques Art Center will be holding an opening reception for “Northern Waters” on Saturday, Jan. 20 from noon to 3 in the afternoon. More information on the exhibit and the art center can be found on their website.