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Artists Beck, Johnson were friends
Published 11:31am Monday, March 15, 2010Fergus Falls artist Charles Beck was a high school classmate of Eugene Johnson who died Jan. 24. Johnson started Bethel University’s art department at St. Paul in 1948.
“Eugene and I played on the 1940 Fergus Falls High School basketball team,” said Beck. “He was a senior and I was a junior. There wasn’t an art department in the school, but I was aware of his interest in art through Eugene’s work on the school yearbook staff and as a designer of the window displays at Arneson-Larson clothing store in downtown Fergus Falls.”
Years later, their paths crossed at the wedding of Beck’s good friend and Fergus Falls native Gordon Edlund, to Elaine Ellingson of Ashby.
“Eugene, by that time, was an ordained pastor,” said Beck. “He officiated at the wedding.”
Beck said that Johnson was an excellent teacher and artist.
“Eugene excelled in ceramics which he taught for decades at Bethel,” said Beck. “Over the years he and I exchanged art exhibits. Eugene showed his work at the community college in Fergus Falls and I showed my work at Bethel.”
Several of Johnson’s works are part of the M State – Fergus Falls permanent art collection.
Bethel College, as it was known before adding University to its name, originally was located on Snelling Avenue, just across from the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.
“The Johnsons hosted our family each year when we visited the State Fair, just a block away,” said Beck. “Eugene never retired from doing art work. When he left Bethel and moved to Green Valley, Ariz., he set up a ceramics studio and gallery. We enjoyed visiting him there, too.”
Beck emphasized that Eugene Johnson was one of those truly good, nice people.
“He had a gentle spirit and treated people well,” said Beck. “Eugene did a lot of good for many people, without bringing any notoriety to himself.”
Fergus Falls native Johnson, who also played basketball at FFHS with future Daily Journal publisher Charles Underwood, was eulogized in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
“He’s remembered most as Bethel’s first art teacher, who in 1948 founded its art department in the basement of a seminary building on Snelling Avenue,” said staff writer Tim Harlow. “That was at a time when many didn’t see the arts and Christianity fitting together.”
Johnson had plans to enter the ministry, so he earned a bachelor of divinity degree at Bethel and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the University of Southern California.
“Johnson was invited to teach Bible classes at Bethel,” said Harlow. “But stemming from his high school days in Fergus Falls, where he designed store windows for a clothing shop, he was an artist at heart and asked to teach art, instead.”
His daughter, Conny Spann of Kenmore, Wash., said her father believed that Christian artists needed a place to study, consistent with Christian beliefs. “Bethel was his mission,” she said.
The Eugene Johnson Art Gallery at Bethel is named in his honor. Johnson founded the national organization, Christians in Visual Arts, to explore and nurture the relationship between visual arts and the Christian faith.
There may not have been an art department when Beck and Johnson attended Fergus Falls High School in 1940, in the Washington School that formerly stood along Cavour Avenue just north of downtown Fergus Falls.
It’s a credit to them, their high school instructors, and personal mentors that they became outstanding individuals and renowned artists in their own right.
