Family affair for Gag artwork

Flavia Gag’s art comes home; Wanda’s art heads to Duluth

By KURT NESBITT Journal Staff Writer
NEW ULM — As the work of one of Anton Gag’s daughters comes home to New Ulm, the work of another is headed northward.

Like the two women who made them, works by sisters Wanda Gag and Flavia Gag are traveling to and from their hometown.

Some of Flavia Gag’s work was unwrapped at the family home on Thursday afternoon. A curator for a Duluth art museum was perusing the Brown County Historical Society’s collection of work by Flavia’s more famous sister, Wanda, at the same time.

Both sisters were born in New Ulm and raised by Lizzie and Anton Gag, who was a notable artist in his own right.

Flavia followed Wanda to Minneapolis and then to New York, where both women worked as illustrators of children’s books in addition to creating their own art.

Flavia gave some of her work to a roommate, Camilla Dykes, who kept it until about one year ago.

At that time she sold the artwork to George Glotzbach, a member of the Wanda Gag House Association. Glotzbach first made contact with Dykes in 1991, when he asked her if she would sell what Flavia gave her.

Last summer, Dykes called Glotzbach to see if he was interested in buying them. He mailed her two payments — one from himself and one from the Wanda Gag Association.

The paintings arrived at his house on Wednesday. They will be display at the Wanda Gag House.

Glotzbach said no one knows what the paintings are actually worth because little demand for Flavia Gag’s work exists.

Inside the package were three tempera paintings, three hand-made Christmas cards, a hand-made birthday card with a wooden butterfly, sketches for Flavia’s Florida residence and a hand-painted wooden bowl.

In terms of significant art work, Flavia’s paintings are “minor,” Glotzbach said. He said the association’s goal is to acquire artwork that represents the whole Gag family and not just Wanda.

While Flavia and Wanda did many of the same things during their lives, they did not have the same career.

Glotzbach characterized Flavia as more of an illustrator, while Wanda was more of an artist.

“It helps to expand and flesh out the collection of Gag family art and memorabilia beyond the Wanda Gag house,” Glotzbach said.

All of Anton Gag’s children learned to draw and paint in the Wanda Gag House. Of the seven Gag siblings, only Flavia returned to New Ulm. She died in 1978.

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Wanda’s work will be part of an exhibition at the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

Tweed Museum Director Peter Spooner was in New Ulm on Thursday afternoon looking over the Brown County Historical Society’s collection of Wanda Gag’s work for its exhibition, which will display 30 to 40 of Wanda’s prints.

“She is a major force in Minnesota art that we’ve not paid much attention to, really,” Spooner said.

His interest in Wanda Gag developed from making an inventory of the Tweed Museum’s collections. Wanda Gag’s art has never been shown in Duluth, Spooner said. Although many people remember her book “Millions Of Cats” from their childhood, few people make the connection between Wanda Gag’s children’s books and her prints.

Spooner said the exhibition will open in November of 2008 and close in March of 2009.