Former Attleboro Artist Honored with Museum in Midwest

A renowned artist who once ran a busy studio on Mechanic Street in Attleboro and worked as a designer and die cutter for the Robbins Company is being honored with an art museum to be dedicated in his name at Iowa State University.

The Christian Petersen Art Museum will open next month in honor of the university's former resident artist, Christian Petersen (1885-1961).

The sculptor immigrated to the U.S. from Denmark in 1894 and enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 1905, three years after graduating from the Newark (N.J.) Technical and Fine Arts School.

Petersen spent the next several years living in Attleboro and commuting to RISD. It was in Attleboro that he met his lifelong friend and fellow artist George Nerney, an Attleboro resident, in 1907.

"We were brought together in a common bond of art interests," Nerney recalled in Patricia Lounsbury Bliss' "Christian Petersen Remembered" (Iowa State University Press, 1986). "I was thrown in with Petersen in our local YMCA gymnasium; we made frequent trips together to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Rhode Island School of Design; we were together in sketch classes that met occasionally in Attleboro."

That same year, Petersen worked as a design artist alongside Nerney, as well as a die-cutter for the Robbins Company, producing medallions and commemorative jewelry.

Shortly thereafter, Petersen accepted an apprenticeship in Boston with Henry Hudson Kitson, the highly distinguished sculptor responsible for "The Minuteman," a well-known sculpture in Lexington.

In 1908, Petersen married Emma L. Hoenicke. The couple moved into a home on Mechanic Street that was complete with a small studio. For over a decade Petersen maintained an active design studio in Attleboro, doing freelance die-cutting work for the numerous jewelry manufacturers located in the city, Bliss wrote in her book.

The Robbins Company was a particularly good customer of Petersen's during that period, and the sculptor designed gold medallions and sterling silver collector's spoons.