1890-1964
Van Soelen completed high school and then left Saint Paul to explore the West. He worked as a cowhand on cattle ranches in Utah, Nevada, and Montana. Returning to Saint Paul he began formal artistic training at the Saint Paul Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1908. After another period spent working in Utah and Nevada, he continued his studies in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he was awarded the Cresson traveling fellowship which enabled him to spend the year 1913-14 in Europe painting.
At the outbreak of World War I, Van Soelen was in Holland. On his trip home he was shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland, which resulted in pneumonia followed by tuberculosis. Settling in Philadelphia he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy, and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C.; in l9l6 he made his first sale, Summer Morning, to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. That year, on the advice of his physician, he relocated to the Southwest. Van Soelen found New Mexico to his liking, and following his marriage in l92l to Virginia Morrison Carr, a daughter of an old Albuquerque family, the couple settled in Tesuque Valley near Santa Fe.
Van Soelen painted portraits, landscapes of the Southwest, and scenes of the daily life of the cowboy on the range. He and his wife spent winters in the East during the years their children were attending schools there, which yielded landscapes of a very different character. In the late 1930s and early '40s, like so many American artists, he participated in the federal art projects. His murals were for the Grant County Courthouse, Silver City, New Mexico; Buffalo Range for the Portales, New Mexico, post office, l938; Wild Geese for the Waurika, Oklahoma, post office, l939; Landscape and Buffalo Hunting for the post office at Livingston, Texas, l94l. In l947 he began to work in lithography. He limited his work in this medium to a series on cowboy life in the pre-mechanized Southwest.
His work was handled in New York by Ferargil Gallery, where his western paintings were exhibited in l935, and landscapes painted in Litchfield, Connecticut, in l940. A retrospective of his work was presented by the Museum of New Mexico Art Gallery, Santa Fe, in 1960. Van Soelen's awards included a bronze medal in the Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial Exposition, l926; and in Academy exhibitions, a J. Francis Murphy Memorial Prize, l927, and Altman prize, l930.
Van Soelen served on the Art Advisory Committee for the Fine Arts Museum of the Museum of New Mexico; on the board of the School of American Research; and on New Mexico's State Police Board, State Appeal Board, and Selective Service Board.
At the outbreak of World War I, Van Soelen was in Holland. On his trip home he was shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland, which resulted in pneumonia followed by tuberculosis. Settling in Philadelphia he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy, and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C.; in l9l6 he made his first sale, Summer Morning, to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. That year, on the advice of his physician, he relocated to the Southwest. Van Soelen found New Mexico to his liking, and following his marriage in l92l to Virginia Morrison Carr, a daughter of an old Albuquerque family, the couple settled in Tesuque Valley near Santa Fe.
Van Soelen painted portraits, landscapes of the Southwest, and scenes of the daily life of the cowboy on the range. He and his wife spent winters in the East during the years their children were attending schools there, which yielded landscapes of a very different character. In the late 1930s and early '40s, like so many American artists, he participated in the federal art projects. His murals were for the Grant County Courthouse, Silver City, New Mexico; Buffalo Range for the Portales, New Mexico, post office, l938; Wild Geese for the Waurika, Oklahoma, post office, l939; Landscape and Buffalo Hunting for the post office at Livingston, Texas, l94l. In l947 he began to work in lithography. He limited his work in this medium to a series on cowboy life in the pre-mechanized Southwest.
His work was handled in New York by Ferargil Gallery, where his western paintings were exhibited in l935, and landscapes painted in Litchfield, Connecticut, in l940. A retrospective of his work was presented by the Museum of New Mexico Art Gallery, Santa Fe, in 1960. Van Soelen's awards included a bronze medal in the Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial Exposition, l926; and in Academy exhibitions, a J. Francis Murphy Memorial Prize, l927, and Altman prize, l930.
Van Soelen served on the Art Advisory Committee for the Fine Arts Museum of the Museum of New Mexico; on the board of the School of American Research; and on New Mexico's State Police Board, State Appeal Board, and Selective Service Board.
