Prolific Minnesota artist Robert Mattson looked at the world with a sense of wonder and discovery.
So it was fitting that – following his death at 81 after a long battle with cancer in May of 2024 – his wife Marjorie Nilssen came across a discovery of her own.
“I was cleaning out a storage unit, and there were 30 of his large-scale paintings that hadn’t been taken out of storage in 30 years,” she said. “They were all five-to-six feet or larger. Some of them I’d never seen before. I took them out to look at them and I was so floored and amazed. I was extremely emotional, overcome with joy, and I knew right then I needed to have an exhibition so more people could see them and appreciate their magnificence.
“The problem was finding a venue. Not many places offer a large enough space to exhibit these types of pieces.”
The solution to that dilemma came through a burst of insight Nilssen, an artist with a long career of her own, experienced on a trip to St. Cloud from her home near New London, Minnesota.
“A light came on in my head and I realized it was Saint John’s,” said Nilssen, who displayed her work along with Mattson’s at SJU some years ago.
“So I stopped in Collegeville on my way home and, believe it or not, (CSB and SJU gallery manager) Becky Pflueger was there installing a show. We talked and I told her about my idea. She was receptive and things went from there.”
Indeed, that discussion led to “Remembering Robert Mattson: Paintings and Prints,” an exhibition featuring the paintings Nilssen discovered and other examples of her late husband’s work. It opens on June 25, and runs through July 23, in the Alice R. Rogers and Target Galleries at SJU. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
A closing reception and artist talk with Nilssen is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on July 23. Both that event and the exhibition itself are free and open to the public.
Nilssen said a sense of the work that will be on display can be gleaned through a quote from Mattson himself in his 2010 book “Avant-Garage.”
“The British painter, Francis Bacon, said that the job of the artist was to deepen the mystery,” he wrote. “Albert Einstein said that the beauty of the universe lay in its mystery. These things, I believe, are essential aspects of all art.
“Art speaks truths that defy understanding yet are instantly knowable.”
This marks the first time since before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that CSB and SJU have hosted a summer exhibition.
“We have a lot of visitors on campus during the summer between Reunion Weekend, visitors to (The Saint John’s Pottery) studio, people on their way north and all the bikers coming by on the (nearby) Lake Wobegon Trail,” Pflueger said.
“It’s such a beautiful time here, and it’s been a shame to have these places closed. So we were looking to do something again. Why not give people a chance to get out of the heat and look at some art?”
A Willmar native, Mattson taught art at Ridgewater College in the community for 30 years. He also exhibited his paintings at the Walker Art Museum and Minneapolis Institute or Art, as well as at galleries in New York City and throughout the U.S.
The exhibition at SJU will feature his large-scale paintings in the Alice R. Rogers Gallery and his etchings and screen prints in the Target Gallery.
“I really wanted to show his prints as well because it’s important for people to see how diverse Bob was as an artist,” Nilssen said. “Some people think he was just an abstract painter, but that wasn’t true at all. There was nothing he couldn’t do. That’s the absolute truth. He could make prints, build sculptures. He even made boats!”
Nilssen said she hopes people who visit the exhibition come away with an appreciation of just how talented an artist her husband was.
“A lot of people view an abstract painting and they want to know what it’s about and what it all means,” she said. “That’s such a hard question to answer. We all look at art differently and have different responses. Bob’s paintings are about color, mystery and beauty but have no stories to tell.”
Nilssen hopes visitors can look at Mattson’s paintings for their sheer beauty.
“If anything, I just want people look at them with an open mind. That they appreciate the form, the colors, the shapes, the lines. He was so amazingly skilled as an artist.”