The Iowa Stater, May 2001

The Iowa Stater
May 2001

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Petersen makes it to the Smithsonian

Marion Link, the model for Cornhusker.

Art history was made when Iowa State sculptor-in-residence Christian Petersen and Iowa's champion cornhusker Marion Link met on a bright October day in 1941. Link was entered in a cornhusking competition in Nevada. Petersen followed the muscular young man, sketching his prowess as Link strode down one row after another, shearing cob off stalk and husk off cob.

Inspired by the effort, Petersen asked Link to pose for him. Link, a modest man by all accounts, agreed, but asked that the sculpture's face not look like his. Cornhusker was completed the next year.

The plaster sculpture spent many years in the lobby of the Sheldon Munn Hotel in Ames and later the Kirkwood Hotel in Des Moines. Then it faded from view--and memory.

Preparation for the University Museums' retrospective of Petersen's work last fall spurred the rediscovery of Cornhusker in the basement of the Kirkwood. The Coppola family of Des Moines, the owners of the hotel, gave the sculpture to the university.

Now, Cornhusker is part of the nation's art collection. Earlier this month, a bronze of Cornhusker was added to the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection in Washington, D.C. Cornhusker is one of the few sculptures of the Depression era to capture an image of Midwest life.

Modesty, it appears, can take you places.

"Cornhusker"