Jacob H. Fjelde was a Norwegian born, American sculptor.

Background

Jakob Henrik Gerhard Fjelde was born in Ålesund

Ålesund

is a town and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sunnmøre, and the center of the Ålesund Region. It is a sea port, and is noted for its unique concentration of Art Nouveau architecture....

 Møre og Romsdal

Møre og Romsdal

is a county in the northernmost part of Western Norway. It borders the counties of Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Sogn og Fjordane. The county administration is located in Molde, while Ålesund is the largest city.-The name:...

 county, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. His father, a carpenter and wood carver had moved to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1872, though Fjelde did not arrive there until about 1887. After arriving in America he settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

. He was the father of sculptor Paul Fjelde

Paul Fjelde

-Background:Paul Fjelde was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota the son of Jacob Fjelde, a sculptor who emigrated from Norway. Jacob Fjelde was a well-known sculptor in Norway when he emigrated to the United States in 1887. After Jacob’s untimely death at age 36, the Fjelde family moved to North Dakota...

 and the brother of artist Pauline Fjelde

Pauline Fjelde

Pauline Fjelde was a Norwegian born American painter, embroiderer, and textile artist.-Background:Pauline Gerhardine Fjelde was born in Ålesund, Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. She and her family immigrated to the United States in 1887. Pauline Fjelde is one of a lineage of family artisans...

. His grandsons included Ibsen scholar Rolf G. Fjelde

Rolf G. Fjelde

Rolf G. Fjelde was an American playwright, educator and poet. Fjelde was the founding president of the Ibsen Society of America which is dedicated to the works of Henrik Ibsen.-Background:...

.

Career

Fjelde is remembered as both a prolific portraitist and the creator of public monuments. One of his better known monument is the one dedicated to the 1st Minnesota Infantry(1897) located at Gettysburg Battlefield

Gettysburg Battlefield

The Gettysburg Battlefield is the area of the July 1–3, 1863, military engagements of the Battle of Gettysburg within and around the borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Locations of military engagements extend from the 4 acre site of the first shot & at on the west of the borough, to East...

 where its 262 members suffered 215 casualties.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul area hosts several of his major public bronze outdoor monuments. One is a Statue of Hiawatha

Hiawatha

Hiawatha was a legendary Native American leader and founder of the Iroquois confederacy...

 carrying Minnehaha

Minnehaha

Minnehaha is a fictional Native American woman documented in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. She is the lover of the titular protagonist Hiawatha. The name is often incorrectly said to mean "laughing water", though in reality it translates to "waterfall" or...

, based on characters from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

's poem The Song of Hiawatha

The Song of Hiawatha

The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem, in trochaic tetrameter, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, featuring an Indian hero and loosely based on legends and ethnography of the Ojibwe and other Native American peoples contained in Algic Researches and additional writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft...

. The statue was created for the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and permanently erected in 1912. Another, in Loring Park

Loring Park

Loring Park is the largest park in the Central Community of Minneapolis, Minnesota on the southwest corner of downtown Minneapolis. It also lends its name to the surrounding neighborhood.- Park :...

 in St. Paul, is of Norwegian violin virtuoso Ole Bull

Ole Bull

Ole Bornemann Bull was a Norwegian violinist and composer.-Background:Bull was born in Bergen. He was the eldest of ten children of Johan Storm Bull and Anna Dorothea Borse Geelmuyden . His brother, Georg Andreas Bull became a noted Norwegian architect...

 was cast in 1897, a year after Fjelde's death. The Minerva

Minerva

Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...

  bronze sculpture is located in the downtown Minneapolis Central Library.

Jacob Fjelde had first sculpted Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...

 from life in Molde, Norway during 1885. Although Ibsen disliked sitting for artists, he took a liking to the precocious young sculptor, then 26 years old, and patiently sat for the bust. Among his portraits of Ibsen, several are noteworthy. One is located in Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

 in Wright Park, another is at the North Dakota State College of Science

North Dakota State College of Science

The North Dakota State College of Science is a 2-year public college in Wahpeton, North Dakota and part of the North Dakota University System...

 in Wahpeton, North Dakota

Wahpeton, North Dakota

The first European explorer in the area was Jonathan Carver in 1767. He explored and mapped the Northwest at the request of Major Robert Rogers, commander of Fort Michilimackinac, the British fort at Mackinaw City, Michigan, which protected the passage between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron...

. Another bust of Ibsen, located in the Como Park, Zoo, and Conservatory in St. Paul, Minnesota was stolen from the Park in 1981. The sculpture was recovered, restored, and reinstalled by Public Art Saint Paul in 1999.

External links

• Minnesota- 1st Infantry Memorial at Gettysburg Nat'l Military Park
• Henrik Ibsen statue at Wright Park in Tacoma
• Minerva bronze sculpture at downtown Minneapolis Central Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Hiawatha and Minnehaha at Minnehaha Falls
• Ole Bull Statue in Loring Park
• Jakob Hendrik Gerhard Fjelde with his siblings