Virtual Galleries

Paul E. Bolstad was born near Lanesboro, Minnesota in 1869 to Endre and Brita Borsheim Bolstad who immigrated from Hardanger, Norway in 1866. He was a self-taught painter, wood carver, and clay sculptor and lived on an acreage two miles northwest of Lake Mills, Iowa. He had long been interested in drawing and painting and even made his own brushes from local plants. As a young man, he apprenticed in a photography studio for three years then bought his own gallery and operated it with a partner for about five years in Northwood, Iowa. Then he worked as a painter and decorator. He first exhibited at the North Iowa Fair in 1921 and began sculpting in 1922. Bolstad died in Lake Mills, Iowa in 1962.