91-year-old artist sells hundreds of paintings to benefit Minneapolis homeless services

Artist and philanthropist Ted Pouliot has given to causes that serve homeless people all his life.

As a teenager at DeLaSalle High School, he’d volunteer across the street with Brother DePaul (born Thomas Kondrak) at the original House of Charity’s dining hall for the poor. Pouliot later co-founded the Minneapolis affordable housing provider Project for Pride in Living with the former priest Joe Selvaggio and chaired its board for eight years.

At 91, now long past retirement, Pouliot paints. He does a lot of nature scenes of curvaceous birch forests, and abstracts influenced by pointillism and the primary colors palette of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian.

Pouliot’s paintings have shown at galleries locally and internationally. Several hang in the offices of various nonprofit agencies that serve homeless people.

This weekend, he plans to sell hundreds of his works to benefit Minneapolis agencies that serve the homeless, poor and food insecure.

“I do paint a lot, so I accumulated a lot of paintings, and I thought, well, I’ll donate it all to a good cause,” Pouliot said.

Half of the proceeds will go to Agate Housing and Services (the result of the merger of House of Charity and St. Stephen’s Human Services). The rest will be split between Groveland Emergency Food Shelf in Minneapolis’ Stevens Square neighborhood and Sabathani Food Shelf in the Central neighborhood.

“I’m not sure how Ted got more energy than two typical people have, but I’m certainly grateful that he puts that energy towards community-building,” Agate spokesperson Virginia Brown said. “Most of our peer organizations, working with people who face homelessness, know Ted. Because he cares and he actually puts that care to work.”

Brown recalled that for years Pouliot would volunteer one day a week at Agate’s food center, offering information about finding food, housing and health care he’d collected himself and translated into Spanish.

David Andrews, Agate’s associate director of street outreach and shelter operations, recalled speaking to Pouliot the first time in the winter of 2022, when he called out of the blue wanting to know what unsheltered clients needed. Pouliot ended up ordering hundreds of winter gloves for the organization.

After that, he’d call a few times a year and donate supplies in bulk — belts and wallets that homeless people could wear under their clothes, sweatpants and sweatshirts.

“In these phone calls, he would often reminisce about his long experience with Brother DePaul and the House of Charity kitchen on Nicollet Island,” Andrews said. “And the many interventions to help with poverty and homelessness along the way. I learned a lot about the history of local charity in Minneapolis from him.”

Pouliot’s art sale will take place from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at his house at 2157 Overlook Drive in Bloomington.