Of Sigurd Olson & Les C. Kouba

I recently picked up a copy of Sigurd F. Olson's "Of Time and Place" at the library. What a great read. Olson is an exemplary Minnesotan, legendary outdoorsman, and a great writer, yet I don't recall ever being exposed to his work as a young person growing up in rural SE Minn. It's a shame. I think I would have gravitated toward his short yet deeply evocative essays about backcountry times spent in the Superior-Quetico area, among other North Country places. There's one aspect of this book, and the whole Olson series published by University of Minnesota Press, however, that has fairly deep connections for me in terms of place and family history: the art.

In paging through this relatively slim volume, the last book Olson finished before he died in Minneapolis in 1982, one can't help but notice the awesome artwork. Leslie "Les" Kouba illustrations, black & white sketches, add a sense of magical realism to the text. Owl, otter, moose, trout, cabins, waterfalls, wolf, all offer detailed visual appeal to the stories of watertrails and voyageurs, the memories and reflections of backcountry endurance. Both men share a deep appreciation for wildlife and wilderness, and it shows.
 

Kouba was born near Hutchinson, MN, in 1917. Featured in the National Museum of Wildlife Art and many other galleries, Kouba is a strong regional favorite. He was a colorful character with a twirled moustache and a down-home, Woolrich jacket sort of appeal. My grandpa had two of the three Shelter Series prints and several others featuring whitetail deer, Canada geese, various ducks, and the prairie favorite, ringneck pheasant. These now hang in my parents' house. Kouba was an instrumental precursor to modern sentamentalist Americana painters such as Terry Redlin and Michael Sieve.

Along with his distinctive signature, Kouba often incoporated 13 things, be it mallards, geese, or cans of Grain Belt, Schmidt or other rural detritus into his works. According to Kouba enthusiast Arlen Axdahl, Kouba also took his art to the people after picking up on public interest in watching a painter in progress. He visited Elks clubs, Kiwanis groups, and other places throughout Minnesota to paint for groups. This no doubt endeared him to many and helped develop his wide popular appeal as the "Norman Rockwell of Minnesota." Kouba died peacefully in 1998 after a successful and colorful life. His sense of time and place, as a corollary to Olson's literature, evoke a great diversity of wildlife and wilderness available to us, if we only take the time to look, listen, and feel our way through it.