Guasta sketches

Herbjørn Gausta (1854-1924) was an American artist born in Norway. He attended Luther College from 1872 to 1875 and taught there in 1886-1887. U. V. Koren helped raise funds for him to spend 3 years studying art in Europe. Pastor Koren acquired a number of his paintings and I believe each of the Nelson children probably own one. Luther College also has much of his art as does Vesterheim Museum in Decorah. There are many altar paintings in the United States that he painted including the one at First Lutheran Church in Decorah.

He lived at the Washington Prairie parsonage for awhile when U. V. Koren was pastor. During his stay at the parsonage he made a number of sketches on the walls of the room in which he stayed. When Paul Koren, U. V. and Elisabeth Koren’s son retired and moved out of the parsonage the cleaning committee of the church decided to remove the sketches (it was said there were some too risqué to be in a parsonage) and before they could be stopped some of them were destroyed. The remaining pictures have been left on the wall and were preserved as best as could be.

I [JPN] think some of the sketches are of persons living at the parsonage; i.e. Nos. 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 & 10. No. 6 is probably a Norwegian scene. No. 8 may be “self-portrait”. No. 9 looks as though it could be U. V. Koren on the chair. No. 10 is probably one of the Koren daughters.

I took these pictures in 2009 when the parsonage was being made ready for the new pastor and family. At that time the room was designated as a keepsake and no one stays in the room. Vesterheim has pictures that were taken earlier and may show more definition.