Retired Medicine Hat College instructor and local artist Paul (Poul) Nielsen was recognized during the seventh International Prize Leonardo Da Vinci ceremony at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, Italy on June 7.--SUPPLIED PHOTO
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According to the director of the Manhattan Arts International, Paul (Poul) Nielsen is “widely acclaimed for his illuminated and meditative pastel paintings which are included in many private and public collections worldwide.
Director Renee Phillip was speaking about the farm boy who grew up in Standard, Alta., and went on to become a longtime art instructor at Medicine Hat College. Nielsen recently won a prestigious art award in Italy named after one of the world’s most brilliant minds.
On June 7, Nielsen was awarded the seventh International Prize Leonardo da Vinci, presented to him during a gathering of more than 70 international artists at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, Italy.
The prestigious international award recognizes artists whose work contributes to cultural memory and public consciousness, and whose art has made a significant impact on society.
“It’s a way of recognizing artists that they feel are deserving of recognition,” Nielsen told the News.
The award is presented by a jury composed of internationally renowned artists, critics, authorities and members of the World Cultural Council. The annual awards are organized by brothers Salvatore and Francessco Saverio Russo, famed Italian International art curators and critics.
“They say when they go to these various art things throughout the world, there tends to be the same artists over and over,” explains Nielsen. “So it’s a way of bringing artists from other countries and guys from like Medicine Hat, Alberta, or from Standard, over to bring them into the attention of the rest of the world.”
The ceremony was held within the walls of Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology, dedicated to the late painter and scientist who dreamed up inventions ranging from watermills to rockets.
“What’s incredible about it, they’ve got original writing by da Vinci relating to both science and art,” says Nielsen. “He invented all kinds of machines, he’s one of the great minds forever, and in the museum they have created replicas of the diagrams of the airplane, a flying machine, with a submarine.
“The renaissance was a time where science and art were much alloyed together.”
Nielsen is recognized for his more contemporary-style pastel, oil and acrylic paintings that he says draw inspiration from rolling coulees and South Saskatchewan River views from his home studio in Ranchlands.
“My studio really overlooks the river and the coulees and so I study the light in morning and the evening, and I let that influence,” recalls Nieslen. “I’m not a naturalist, I’m not concerned with whether that tree (should be there) or what kind of tree it is, I’m just interested more in the shape and the colour relationship.
“More of the idea of a painter. A painter is more interested in just the visual attributes of what you’re seeing and interplaying all of your visual elements, like line, shape, texture, colour and value.”
Nielsen says he purchased his Ranchlands home that overlooks the coulees following his retirement from Medicine Hat College as a founding instructor of the college’s now called Art and Design Bachelor of Applied Arts program, which seeks to provide artists employable workforce skills.
Born in the small village of Standard, located east of Calgary, Nielsen would leave at the age of 17 to study and eventually teach art at the University of Montana at Missoula in the 1970s before moving to Medicine Hat years later after accepting the professional teaching role at the college.
During this time Nielsen also studied at the New York Studio School. Additionally while in the U.S., the budding artist qualified as a member of Canada’s national luge team and would go on to represent the country in 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.
Nielsen recalls being recruited to train luge in Europe due to his Canadian heritage and the fact he must be good at tobogganing.
“You should start training with us in Europe,” Nielsen recalled of the offer. “So after I left New York I went to London, and because I knew that there was a very good art scene there I just started doing my art. And then in the winter, I would travel with the Canadian team throughout Europe, down throughout France, Germany, Italy.” explains Nielsen.
Nielsen eventually moved to Medicine Hat in 1983 as an art instructor for the college and would go on to help redevelop the entire program when the college began offering diploma, degree and bachelor programs.
Nielsen retired from the college officially in 2015 and continues to attend art exhibitions around the world. This past May, Nielsen participated in an invitation painting exhibition in Nanjiig, China, where he presented his latest work titled “Cross the Ocean.”
This September, Nielsen will be sharing the same work from “Cross the Ocean” in an exhibition at the Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre.
The showing is scheduled from 6-9 p.m on Sept. 12. Nielsen’s work can be viewed online at psnielsen.com.
