Ramsey County History – Summer 2018: “A St. Paul Artist Behind Enemy Lines: Carl Bohnen, World War I, and Americanism”

A St. Paul Artist Behind Enemy Lines: Carl Bohnen, World War I, and Americanism
Author: Steve Trimble

St. Paul artist Carl Bohnen (1872–1951) was an accomplished pencil-and-charcoal portrait artist. In 1914, a group of local, wealthy arts patrons underwrote the cost of sending Bohnen and his family to Germany so that he could study painting in oil. Shortly after the family settled in Munich, they found themselves stranded in a country that was at war with France and Great Britain. Despite the hardships and privations the Bohnens subsequently experienced, they coped, and Carl was able to study and get occasional commissions. After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Bohnen sought to leave the country. Eventually the Bohnens were able to make their way to St. Paul in the summer of 1917, where they found themselves under suspicion for having been in Germany and for not being as pro-American as many in St. Paul demanded of their fellow citizens.
PDF of Trimble article