Charles Beck started selling his drawings in grade school for candy and marbles growing up in Fergus Falls. Some 90 years later, his prints and paintings of nature and landscapes are displayed around the world.
Beck, 94, died Sept. 12 after a prolific career during which he became one of the state's most well-known artists.
"His work is timeless," said Scott Gunvaldson, a Fergus Falls artist who was once Beck's student. "His work wasn't photographic. His whole approach was to distill everything down to its essence."
Beck studied at Concordia College in Moorhead. He would later say in a television interview that he knew nothing about art until he met Prof. Cyrus Running, himself a renowned artist for whom Concordia's art gallery is named.
Beck said his professor started taking him out to sketch nature and farm scenes. "That was my interest, and it never left," Beck said in the 2014 interview.
He joined the Naval Air Corps in 1943 and trained as a pilot, though the war ended before he could serve in combat. In 1960, Beck began teaching art at the Fergus Falls Community College.
In the 1970s, Beck started working primarily in woodcut prints, which would become the medium for which he gained acclaim.
Typically using a piece of soft basswood, he would carve an intricate image in reverse, then coat the wood with ink. After pressing a paper or canvas onto the wood block, the ink would display the first image. If he wanted another color, he would need another block. He would sometimes carve up to six different blocks to create a single image, a process that would require precision in matching the carvings and often mystified his fans as to how he did his work.
