Paul Granlund

Part 10: The Cathedrals of Downtown Minneapolis

This is part 10 of a multi-part series.

Back when I was writing up my cathedral tour, I was planning on writing a post specifically about the sculptor Paul Granlund, but I never got around to it. I was reminded of that when I saw a couple of beautiful sculptures of his at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum over the weekend. This arboretum is just a gorgeous place, I highly recommend a visit. The first one, Winter Summer Nymphs, is located right behind the visitor center:

The second one, Mountain Mirage, is tucked away behind the Japanese Garden:

Paul Granlund lived from 1925 to 2003, and created many hundreds of sculptures that you can find scattered throughout the Twin Cities area. He has a very distinctive style, with human figures in motion set against geometric shapes. Often times, the human figures seem to be getting crushed by the geometric shapes, as in the Winter Summer Nymphs above, or in the Resurrection II found at Saint Marks Cathedral (sorry about the poor lighting):

This sculpture, Christ, Peter and Paul, is also found in the sanctuary at Saint Mark’s Cathedral:

Here is Resurrection, 1985, at the Central Lutheran Church, Minneapolis:

And here is Birth of Freedom, 1977, in front of the Westminster Presbyterian Church:

So just a really great sculptor whose works you can find all over the Minneapolis area. His work is quite distinctive, and I was easily able to identify the Arboretum sculptures as his based on my cathedral tour.

There was also an art fair at the Arboretum, and one of the pieces of artwork I saw was a photograph of a cathedral in Saint Paul! It looked really beautiful, and it inspired me to do a Saint Paul cathedral tour next. Stay tuned! (And in case you are waiting, I plan to drop the second installment of Yahweh and Elohim next week.)

I’ll close out with a couple more pictures from out visit to the Arboretum this weekend: