10/15/2005:
Ann Brown Bolin was born on this date in 1893 and died in Cass County exactly 81 years later. She studied sculpture at the NDAC in Fargo and then got her masters degree from Columbia University, where she studied under Grant Wood, Malderelli and Alexander Archipenko.
Bolin worked in stone, wood, and clay and eventually returned to NDAC, where she headed the art department from 1934-44. In 1938, she received a Carnegie Fellowship to work at Harvard.
Her work was painstaking, and she produced only two or three pieces a year, yet it was exhibited all over the country. In 1946, a Georgian marble piece titled “Bison” won third place and was purchased by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which featured her work again the following year.
Source: Barr, Paul E. “Ann Brown Bolin.” North Dakota Artists. UND Library Studies #1, 1954.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm