Uff Da: The Folk Art of Emily Lunde

February 26 – March 30, 2022

Touring the state of North Dakota through the Museum’s Rural Arts Initiative.

Emily Wilhelmina Dufke Lunde was born in northern Minnesota and, as she says, “with a handle like that you had to have a sense of humor.” Laurel Reuter says of this North Dakota folk artist: “Were the people of North Dakota to name their treasures, Emily Lunde would certainly be among them. She is one of the state’s eminent folk artists and unofficial cultural historian.” As both artist and author, Mrs. Lunde has recorded the life of Scandinavian immigrants settling the prairies and small towns of the Red River Valley during the early 20th century.

Emily Lunde was born in rural Minnesota in 1914. Her father died when she was five years old, and Emily and her two sisters were raised by her immigrant grandparents on a farm. Memories of those days are the inspiration for much of her work. Emily left home at the age of 18 and went to work as a maid in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Although always interested in art and painting, Emily married and raised four children before beginning to paint seriously in 1974.

Mrs. Lunde’s work is included in a number of important private and public collections in the United States. Paintings by Emily Lunde can be found in U.S. Embassies around the works under the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies Project. Dr. Robert Bishop, the late Director of the Folk Art Museum in New York City, has included Mrs. Lunde and her work in his book on American folk art and painters. Dr. Bishop also donated over forty of her paintings to the Art in Embassies Project.