02/11/2026
Shared from Life Enterprise Nov 2025
The Lake Region Area is lucky to have three artists who have been recognized not only in Minnesota, the United States, but world-wide.
WEM students had a chance to study various aspects of the art created by Adolf Dehn, Roger Preuss and David Maass, the three local artists who lived in this area.
As part of an overarching theme of a "Dehn Day Celebration" to build knowledge around the purpose of the mural attached to the WEM Elementary School, students got a chance to celebrate the amazing artistic talent that has come out of our small communities and impacted the local, national and even international arts communities over the decades.
During the morning hours at WEM Auditorium in Waterville, students had a chance to learn more about these artists and their history when it comes to this area.
Le Sueur County Historical Society has a wonderful collection of original works by all three artists and have even presented the work of Dehn, Preuss and Maass to the community in adult forums. This was their first attempt at community engagement at the K-12 level.
Dr. Ruth Collins and Jeff Jarvis came to speak on behalf of their organization and shared a collection of more than a dozen replicas of the three artist's artwork - allowing three students to "win" a replica of their choice to take home! First grader, Astrid Hanson, third grader, Archer Miller, and 10th grader, Tatum Kallstadt each selected a piece from the displayed works.
The Waterville Area Arts Council was instrumental in securing grant funding that not only resulted in the beautiful Dehn-inspired mural which was painted by local high school students and art teachers; but they also funded a set of ten K-12 art units that help our students gain a greater understanding and respect for the talents of those three local artists.
“While we were a bit late in launching the initiative this year, we still wanted to get a first event out there, so only K-3 and HS Art classes were able to fit the new art unit into their classes,” Art teacher Kelly Lynn Stanton-Nutt said. “Next year, with K-12 in one location, we plan to fully explore the art units at all grade levels and move to a juried showcase format to honor the incredible talents of our own students in each art category.”
Visual presentations the students saw in regards to their lessons in addition to some reproduced classic prints:
• Introducing Adolf Dehn (Kindergarten)
• Adolf Dehn and Regionalism (Grade 1)
• David Maass Wildlife Painter (Gr 2 & HS Studio Art)
• Roger Preuss (Grade 3)
• Dehn the Watercolorist (HS Drawing and Painting)
• Dehn the Cartoonist (HS Graphic Design)
• Dehn the Printmaker (MS Art - not taught this year)
Kindergarten students were introduced to Adolf Dehn and the mural that was painted to honor his legacy. They learned how Dehn made sketches of his paintings and labeled the areas with the colors he thought should be used.
Local students thought out the color selections for each part of the "Minnesota in August" coloring sheet they worked on to understand the many decisions that go into creating a single piece of art.
Grade 1 examined how Adolf Dehn's influence in the Regionalism Art Movement produced watercolor paintings of idyllic images of life in small mid-western towns - more often than not, around Waterville.
Students selected from a collection of rural Minnesota images mostly of Waterville, Elysian, Morristown, and Warsaw - the towns they come from - to create their own watercolor paintings to evoke joy and calm when viewed.
Grade 2 learned about the collection of fish paintings created by local wildlife artist, Roger Preuss. While he is most famous for his waterfowl art, his other wildlife art utilizes brighter colors and looser shaping of the environment. Preuss created prints of his work to raise funds for wildlife conservation efforts. Local students created colorful styrofoam and marker prints of Minnesota fish in his honor.
Grade 3 had a lot of fun with the many varieties of ducks native to Minnesota. Learning about David Maass' incredible success creating oil paintings of waterfowl, our student artists tried their hand at water based oil pastels to draw the breed of duck of their choice. Their drawings became paintings by adding water by brush!
High school students in Foundations in Studio Art also studied the work of David Maass, focusing on birds in flight. While local students created a larger variety of Minnesota native birds than Maass preferred to paint, their close attention to light, color and detail in their acrylic on canvas paintings was inspired by his artwork.
High school students in Drawing and Painting 1 & 2 found images of Minnesota landscapes for their watercolor paintings - a nod to the incredible collection of watercolor landscapes created by Adolf Dehn. Learning to layer color and apply paint using a variety of methods helped our students to create depth and detail in their work - just as Dehn did decades ago.
High school students in Graphic Design put the focus on society and social issues in their artwork - just as Dehn did in his lithograph cartoons in the 1930s and 1940s. While local students were not able to create lithograph prints, they were able to use pen and ink to illustrate perceived injustices in a visual vignette.
“It has been an interesting journey exploring the lives and artwork of these three incredibly talented artists,” Stanton-Nutt said. “I look forward to presenting the art units in future years to see how each new group interprets the work and applies their own talents to school-wide displays of art.
