Roger Kast (1943 - 2015)
1943 ■ Born January 21, St. Paul, Minnesota, to Edna and Harley Kast, a St. Paul policeman.
1963 ■ Enrolls in Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
1967 ■ Graduates with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
1967 ■ Enrolls in California College of the Arts, Oakland. California influences include the paintings of Richard Diebenkorn.
1969 ■ Graduates with a Master of Fine Arts degree.
1969-1971 ■ Becomes the director of an innovative “Art & Ecology” summer camp, Urban Nature Institute for Youth (Camp UNIFY) in Branscomb, California.
1971 ■ Returns to St. Paul.
1972 ■ Moves his family to Crookston, Minnesota to help establish Lady Slipper Designs and Up North Handcrafts. He designed the first stuffed toy loon and many other products.
1977-1998 ■ Establishes a studio in downtown Duluth, where he produced over 1,000 drawings and paintings. The Lake Impression series shows the influence of Lake Superior on his work. They include Lake Superior sunrises, moonrises, and stormy moods.
2003 ■ Completed a series of large lithographs at Texas A & M University, Corpus Christi.
2015 ■ Died July 3 in Nevis, Minnesota. In his final years Roger continued to work on a series of drawings and paintings in his studio in Northern Minnesota. His later work was influenced by the big white and red pines, and being near the “source” of the Mississippi - Lake Itasca.
Among his major influences were Minnesota artists, Paul Kramer, Birney Quick, Paul Olson, and George Morrison. He studied directly under painters and printmakers, Robyn Denny and Anthony Gross from Great Britain, Ger Lataster from Holland, and Shirley Goldfarb from France. Roger’s Lake Superior sunrise paintings show the Lataster abstract expressionist influence most clearly.
Roger's work is in the collections of 3M Company, Pentair Corporation of St. Paul, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, and can be seen at the Northwestern National Life Insurance building in downtown Minneapolis. Two large Lake Superior Sunrise paintings can be viewed in downtown Duluth at the Public Library and the Wells Fargo Bank.
EDUCATION:
1969 Master of Fine Arts California College of the Arts, Oakland, California
1967 Bachelor of Fine Arts Minneapolis College of Art & Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2008 Saint John’s University Art Center, Target Gallery, Collegeville, Minnesota
2005 New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, New York Mills, Minnesota
2004 Bemidji Community Arts Center, Bemidji, Minnesota
1995 Studio 405, Duluth, Minnesota
1994 Anderson & Anderson Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1990 Anderson & Anderson Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1988 Faegre’s, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1987 Gallery 323, Duluth, Minnesota
1987 Pepperdine University, Malibu, California
1983 Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, Minnesota
SELECTED GROUP
2008 16th Annual Juried Exhibition, MacRostie Art Center, Grand Rapids, Minnesota
EXHIBITIONS:
2003 Art on the Plains 2003/Competition, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota
2003 Region Two Traveling Exhibition/Competition, Bemidji, Minnesota
1998 Men’s Work, Lizzards Gallery, Duluth, Minnesota
1998 References to Drawing, Anderson & Anderson Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1997 Twenty Artists/Twenty Questions, Steensland Museum, Northfield, Minnesota
1996 Third Ohara International Watercolor Competition, Ohara, Japan
1996 Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program Competition, Fire, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1996 Duluth-Vaxjo: Contemporary Fine Art Competition Konsthall & Galleriet, Vaxjo, Sweden
1995 Virtuosity Competition, Park Avenue Armory, New York, New York
1994 Roger Kast/George Morrison, Lizzards Gallery, Duluth, Minnesota
1991 George Morrison/Roger Kast, Gallery 323, Duluth, Minnesota
COLLECTIONS:
Northwest Minnesota Foundation
3M Corporation
Northwestern National Life Insurance, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Hanft, Fride, O’Brien, Harries, Swelbar & Burns, Attorneys at Law
Tweed Museum of Art
Fryberger, Buchanan, Smith, and Frederick, Professional Association
City of Duluth
Wells Fargo Banks
Pentair Corporation, St. Paul, MN
Richport Corporation, Dallas, Texas
Vofab Inc, Vaxjo, Sweden
COMMISSIONS:
Duluth Port Authority
Natural Resources Research Institute, University of Minnesota
City of Duluth, Department of Parks & Recreation
University of Minnesota-Duluth