About Magnus Heurlin

Name variants

Rusty Heurlin
  • Biography

    One of Alaska's earliest, most beloved, and longest-tenured resident painters, Rusty Heurlin was a keen observer of the lives of Native people and settlers in northern Alaska.

    He was born in Christianstad, Sweden, of Swedish parents and trained at the Fenway School of Illustration in Boston. The artist arrived in Valdez, Alaska in 1916. He left to serve in World War I, but returned to Alaska in 1924 for good. He eventually made his home in Ester, just outside Fairbanks, where he lived until his death in 1986.

    Heurlin based his work on the accumulated experience of almost seventy years Alaskan residence. He spent, for instance, four whaling seasons at Barrow in the early days of Eskimo whaling in umiaks under sai...

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