Aug. 16—MITCHELL — For decades, the paintings of Fred Mohling have been kept as cherished heirlooms among family members. Hung on living room walls or tucked away carefully in an attic or closet, they are prized for their detail and vibrancy in showing scenes of rural life. But for the most part, they were usually only viewed by those lucky enough to have one in their possession.
Starting Monday, members of the public will get a rare chance to see as many as 50 of Mohling’s works on display at the Dakota Discovery Museum at Dakota Wesleyan University, which is curating the exhibit with the help of Mohling’s extended family.
“Nobody’s ever really — even the family, grandkids, great grandkids that hold these paintings — seen them together,” Greg Miller, a grandson of Mohling, told the Mitchell Republic in a recent interview. “So we’re going to display 50 of these at Wesleyan.”
Born in Gladstone, Nebraska, in 1894, Mohling took up an interest in painting at the age of 3 or 4 after an uncle drew him a picture. He moved to a farm just south of the Jerauld-Aurora county line, northwest of Plankinton, where he farmed, raised cattle and sold feed and was active in community affairs.
It was a busy time in his life, particularly when his wife, Mathilda, died in 1940, leaving Mohling to raise five of their seven children with the help of his two eldest. But he continued his painting, and despite the high quality of his work, Mohling only took a handful of painting lessons in his life, as Mitchell Daily Republic writer F.C. Woodall noted in an article featuring the artist.
“Soon after his wife died he started taking lessons under Mrs. Charles Robinson of Crow Lake, who was an instructor in a WPA art project in Mitchell,” Woodall wrote in the article, dated July 15, 1957. “The project closed after he had taken only three lessons, but Mrs. Robinson encouraged him to continue his painting.”
For grandchildren like Miller, it was a mysterious treat to see his grandfather working to create the entrancing images.
“It was a big, fun thing to go to his farm. And quite honestly, I didn’t notice his paintings when I was a small kid, but we’d go to his bedroom where he painted everything, and we’d see his stuff there, but kids don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff,” Miller said.
He won several prizes for his work at the South Dakota State Fair, and his paintings have been displayed in museums, at the Corn Palace in Mitchell and at Augustana University.
Since his death in 1984, Mohling’s works have largely been in the hands of his family. They held a display of his works at the Corn Palace last year, which further inspired family members to share Mohling’s works with the public.
“I have a cousin out in Spearfish, and he was on a mission to catalog all of my grandfather’s paintings. Because who knew where they were all at? So we started with the family and asked people to take photographs,” Miller said. “So far, we’ve discovered over 150 paintings that he did. And it was amazing trying to chase down all of them.”
Paintings were located as nearby as Nebraska and as far away as California. Mountain scenes. Animals. Farming scenes. Shipwrecks. And Miller knows there are others still undocumented. A famous Christmas display Mohling built and featured on his lawn that used to draw hundreds of visitors from around the countryside is still mostly missing in action.
When the family connected with Dakota Wesleyan about holding an exhibit, Miller drove several from his collection up from Overland Park, Kansas, where he lives. With others loaned out by family, the sampling is expected to be a unique attraction for the next two months.
Kitty Allen, vice president of institutional advancement at Dakota Wesleyan, said following conversations with the family it was decided the temporary exhibit space at the museum would be a perfect place to exhibit Mohling’s work. It was a chance to celebrate the local “folk artist” and introduce him to new admirers, of which Allen said she is one.
“I actually knew nothing about Fred Mohling, but we continued our conversations, and we finally decided that maybe this late summer and early fall would be a good time to put a temporary exhibit up,” Allen said. “From the very first day I saw his work, I though, oh — I really like that.”
Allen along with Lesta Turchen, a former DWU associate professor and member of the board of trustees, worked with the family to select paintings for the exhibit. Museum staff, which includes Dakota Wesleyan students, have been busy hanging paintings in anticipation of the exhibit’s opening.
The exhibit will fit in nicely with recent efforts by the school to expose the public to local and community art. In 2024,
a grant from the South Dakota Community Foundation was put toward the production of a film featuring public art installations from around the state.
“Part of having a liberal arts degree are the humanities, and that includes art. Art, theater, the visual and performing arts. In that sense, it fits well with who Dakota Wesleyan is,” Allen said.
The exhibit will be open from Monday, Aug. 18 through Tuesday, Sept. 30, and Miller said the family would be looking to visit the display, which also includes other memorabilia as well as a painting by Miller’s mother, who picked up some of her father’s talents growing up.
The exhibit will be part celebration of a local artist and part family reunion. Those are reasons to be excited, and he hopes visitors to the exhibit will find their own inspiration in Mohling’s works.
It’s time these paintings were seen and enjoyed again, he said.
“I hope they enjoy looking at it, and I hope they appreciate the breadth of the work that he did. And I hope that he would inspire some kid to try painting,” Miller said.
