Knute Heldner, born in Vederslov Smoland, Sweden was a painter and woodcarver who spent the latter part of his professional career in New Orleans, Louisiana gaining national and international recognition for his Louisiana landscapes.

His early formal training was at Karlskrona Technical School and the National Royal Academy of Stockholm. Heldner immigrated to the United States about 1902, arriving first in Boston and moving later to the Great Lakes region. He held a variety of jobs such as miner, cobbler and lumber camp cook in Minnesota and continued his art education at the Minneapolis School of Fine Art. His early art work focused on the manual labor of mining and lumbering in paintings titled Veter...