Meet Rubber Ducky Painter Bruce Nygren
It is likely you have seen one of Bruce Nygren’s by-now iconic “floating houses” paintings somewhere around town, perhaps at the Flanders Contemporary Art gallery, or in an exhibition sponsored by the Family Housing Fund, or at the State Fair, where he’ll once again be selling his paintings this year. Although Nygren paints many other subjects (mostly vintage toys, like the monkey on the cover of the summer issue of MOQ, and shown here in Watermelon Chimp), he is possibly best known for the houses in the clouds. Since we are featuring one of his paintings on the current edition of MOQ, we thought it would be a good time to learn a little more about him.
Nygren was born in Minneapolis, raised in St. Louis Park, and returned to the city as an adult. “I really like Minneapolis,” he says. He graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in 1969 with a “regular degree” — a bachelor’s degree in fine arts.
“I decided not to go for a master’s because I thought I could just paint,” he says. And he has been painting ever since, along with various jobs over the years, mostly working in and sometimes managing frame shops, a common job for artists, he explains. But he’s been a full-time artist for about 35 years (“You didn’t have to make a lot of money 20 years ago; you could get by in Minneapolis on very little. I had an apartment in the 1970s for $65, utilities included — eight rooms.”), and currently paints with oils in his modest home in the Longfellow neighborhood, not far from his two grown sons and one grandson, Joshua, who loves to play with Nygren’s antique trucks.
We sat down over coffee at Fireroast Mountain Cafe to talk about his life as an artist, his antique toys (of which he is a knowledgeable collector), a little historical analysis of the two world wars (which is not repeated here), and his current artistic bent.
How long have you been doing art?
Since I was a little kid. Even in grade school, the teachers told me, “You’re going to be an artist” — I loved it. It was my way to impress my friends; it was something I was good at. I did mostly drawing and water colors through high school.
I did a lot of flying airplane pictures in high school with watercolors, a lot of WWI aces. . . . It’s what got me really interested in painting clouds. I still have a childish interest in WWI aviators. They had to be brave enough to go up in the air in the first place, and then they had to shoot each other, and they didn’t want to. I love those airplanes that were fabric covered, they were beautiful things.
Your paintings these days always feature vintage toys. Are these toys from your childhood?
I’ve been collecting antique toys since I graduated from college. My Steiff elephant has cast-iron wheels; I got it from Audrey’s Antiques on Nicollet Avenue — it’s long gone now [the antique shop, not the elephant]. I use that elephant a lot, I’ll probably use it in my next painting. It has a lot of character.
I had to get rid of most of my toy collection when my apartment burned down in the 1970s. I sold a lot of toys because it gave me such a bad feeling — my dog died in the fire.
I mostly collect Wyandotte cars and trucks, made in Wyandotte, Michigan, in the 1920s to 1950s, because they have such a beautiful design. They had a wonderful designer who didn’t try to replicate real cars. A lot of intelligent people collect them. I like to use them in my paintings.
It started with that elephant. As soon as I got the elephant I did a painting of them floating in the clouds.
How would you describe your artistic style and who are your artistic influences?
My work is considered by many to be archaic because I just do representational work. I’ve paid no attention to any of the trends. My main influences have always been dead artists. Not Magritte, but nobody believes that.
I get my fantasy influence from the old cartoons — Little Nemo, Krazy Kat; favorite artists are George Inness and Winslow Homer. N.C. Wyeth is a big influence. I never had an interest in the surrealists. My paintings aren’t surrealist at all. I just paint pictures that make me happy.
I’ve noticed a few recent paintings featuring rubber ducks, sometimes with smokestacks to turn them into whimsical tug boats, and the painting in your studio when I stopped by was one of these. Are rubber ducks the new floating houses?
When I was leaving the Riverview Wine Bar recently, one guy [a friend] yells, “rubber ducky painter!”
I didn’t know anything about painting water with any kind of waves. I’ve been preoccupied with that for the last year, and the rubber ducks are just something people can relate to — it’s not another ship painting, it’s painting toys.
Bruce Nygren is represented by Flanders Contemporary Arts. For more information, visit their Web site at www.flanders-art.com, call them at 612/344-1700, or call Bruce at 612/722-4451. You can also see one of Nygren's paintings on display at the Riverview Wine Bar, 3749 42nd Ave. S. in Minneapolis.
