Virtual Galleries

Axel Eugene Schar was born in Oslo, Norway in 1888. Schar was the youngest of 12 children and did a lot of sketching as a child. He came to the U.S. at age 20, settling first in Ada, Minnesota. After a short time, he moved to Crookston, Minnesota and took a job at a Norwegian newspaper. Other jobs as a cook in a lumber camp, flagman for the railroad, restaurant cook, and encyclopedia salesman followed before coming to Duluth, Minnesota. In Duluth, he worked as a sign painter, photographer, and newspaper reporter and opened an art studio on the side. Then in 1945, he moved to Worthington, Minnesota and became an artist and engraver for the newspaper Worthington Daily Globe and started an art class for beginning students. After retiring in 1956, he devoted himself to painting and teaching. Schar died in Worthington, Minnesota in 1984.