Solving a 1960 St. Paul home’s nature mural mystery brings more lost art to light

A nature mural in a Bloomington basement surrounded by piles of kids’ toys.

A nature mural on a living room wall in a Brooklyn Park home populated with little cutouts of humans and canoes.

A painting in a Shoreview garage that was rescued from Goodwill for less than $20.

A painting Henry Hayek originally gifted to the woman who used to babysit his kids.

Since the Minnesota Star Tribune published “Who painted the nature mural in a 1960 St. Paul home? A decades-old mystery is solved” in February, four other Twin Cities area families have realized they, too, have Henry Hayek artworks. Hayek has gone from being an artist lost to Minnesota history to a local household name.

Hayek painted the multi-wall mural in Steve Jensen’s St. Paul home ― and it turns out his walls weren’t the only ones graced by Hayek’s brush.

Elizabeth Kruger of Bloomington was scrolling social media when she happened upon a post with a mural that looked exactly like the one in the basement of her home.

“I saw the article on Instagram,” she said. “I scrolled down, and saw the H. Hayek signature and was like, ‘No way!‘”

Since 2017, when she and her husband bought their Bloomington home, they’d always wondered who painted the large nature mural in their basement, which is a designated play zone for her two daughters, ages 6 and 8. They figured it had to do with the original owners, because the home is a 1963 rambler-style ranch house, but they could never figure it out.

“Everyone who comes to the house is like, ‘What’s the story? Who painted the Bob Ross mural in your basement?‘” she said.

It was similar to the one in Steve Jensen’s place. The previous owners had died and left the home to their children, who then sold it. But the children had little information about the mural.

The Jensens’ place was built in 1960, and the Krugers’ in 1963. And neither family ever painted over their mural. And both murals have that same lone cabin perched by a glistening, idyllic lake.

Sharon Norlander of Brooklyn Park finally recognized the painting on the wall in the house where she’s lived with her husband, Mark, for the past 35 years.

Indeed, it was a Hayek.

When Mark finished school in Paris, they moved to Minnesota. He found their Brooklyn Park home on a quiet residential street across from a small park.

“My husband loved [the mural],” Sharon said. “That’s why he bought the house. But I would never paint over it.”

The mural measures 11 feet long and 4 ¼ feet wide. The Norlanders have had fun cutting and pasting people, canoes and even tiny gnomes onto the pristine lake and wilderness scene.

That playfulness helps Sharon tolerate the painting ― that and the fact that the couch underneath it faces the window. So when she sits down she gets to look outside rather than at the Hayek painting — which she feels is generic and has no focal point.

But the painting has become a family treasure. When the Norlander kids or the Holiuks — a Ukrainian family that the Norlanders sponsored years ago — come by, they have fun looking at how the characters have moved around on the mural.

“We have a nice wooded backyard and it just kind of fits right in,” she added.

The Hayek work is painted directly on the wall, and someone nailed a wooden frame around it, giving the illusion that it is a framed painting.

Steve Petersen of Shoreview has an actual Hayek painting, not a mural painted on a wall.

He found his Hayek painting of a shimmering river against a yellow and orange sky years ago at a garage sale down the street, on sale for only $5. There was a sticker pasted to the back that read: “Goodwill, $16.99.”

“It was kind of dirty, but I just thought, well, they’re just going to throw it away,” Petersen said. “I just felt taken by it.”

For 10 years he kept it in his basement, just leaning against the wall, gathering dust. When he realized that his painting, too, had the distinctive “H. Hayek” signature in the corner, he felt a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t trash.

He got it cleaned up and restored at Museum Services Inc. in south Minneapolis, and then dropped it off at the framer. Soon, it will live above the fireplace.

“I hope the painting one day has value because it now has a lot of value to me, just for having the work done to it,” he said.

Erick Woken of Coon Rapids felt pleased to see a familiar name in the newspaper. Woken remembered Hayek fondly as the artist whose kids his mom babysat.

“He didn’t have a lot of money, so he paid my mom in paintings,” Woken said.

He’s lived with a Hayek painting of a bright red sunset, rushing waterfalls and a large teepee in between trees for most of his life. It’s dated Dec. 17, 1935; that date, but not the year, is his birthday.

He admitted that he was always fascinated with Hayek. The family had about six of his paintings in their home, including a couple of the log slabs that Hayek painted on.

Woken never met Hayek, but he remembered that his grandfather, who worked in construction, met Hayek during the Works Progress Administration (WPA) days.

“My mom said that he and his wife, they backpacked all the way around Lake Superior, took ‘em darn near a year,” he said “I have to think that somewhere along the way, he found that landscape and just dropped everything and painted it.”

Woken’s mom told him that Hayek sold paintings along the way, and that’s how they paid for their honeymoon.

Woken, who is a woodcarver in Coon Rapids, keeps his Hayek painting in his woodshop basement.

“I’ve looked at it practically my whole life,” he said. “It just makes me really calm. It’s such a peaceful landscape.”