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A renowned artist who once ran a busy studio on Mechanic Street in Attleboro and worked as a designer and die cutter for the Robbins Company is being honored with an art museum to be dedicated in his name at Iowa State University.

The Christian Petersen Art Museum will open next month in honor of the university's former resident artist, Christian Petersen (1885-1961).

The sculptor immigrated to the U.S. from Denmark in 1894 and enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 1905, three years after graduating from the Newark (N.J.) Technical and Fine Arts School.

Petersen spent the next several years living in Attleboro and commuting to RISD. It was in Attleboro that he met his lifelong friend and fellow artist George Nerney, an Attleboro resident, in 1907.

"We were brought together in a common bond of art interests," Nerney recalled in Patricia Lounsbury Bliss' "Christian Petersen Remembered" (Iowa State University Press, 1986). "I was thrown in with Petersen in our local YMCA gymnasium; we made frequent trips together to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Rhode Island School of Design; we were together in sketch classes that met occasionally in Attleboro." That same year, Petersen worked as a design artist alongside Nerney, as well as a die-cutter for the Robbins Company, producing medallions and commemorative jewelry.

Shortly thereafter, Petersen accepted an apprenticeship in Boston with Henry Hudson Kitson, the highly distinguished sculptor responsible for "The Minuteman," a well-known sculpture in Lexington.

In 1908, Petersen married Emma L. Hoenicke. The couple moved into a home on Mechanic Street that was complete with a small studio. For over a decade Petersen maintained an active design studio in Attleboro, doing freelance die-cutting work for the numerous jewelry manufacturers located in the city, Bliss wrote in her book.

The Robbins Company was a particularly good customer of Petersen's during that period, and the sculptor designed gold medallions and sterling silver collector's spoons.

"Pete's work at the Robbins Company was, for the most part, very constricting, but he did it with an honesty and skill in his craftsmanship of carving steel that would lead one to just talk in superlatives.

"His great strength, his simplicity of thought, his directness of approach gave a technique that has been unmatched."

Petersen eventually established a burgeoning sculpture career. His work included a 1913 Spanish-American War Memorial located in Newport, R.I. and the Battery D Memorial honoring area soldiers who served in the army during World Wart I commissioned by the city council of Taunton.

In 1920, Petersen was quoted in the Boston Traveler discussing his desire to sculpt full-time, leaving his longtime die cutting career behind: "Die cutting was too mechanical. I wanted to do something more, well, more inspirational."

Petersen's true artistic home turned out to be the Midwest. He went to Iowa State University in 1934 at the request of the school's president, Raymond Hughes, who brought in the artist to work on relief sculptures for the university's Dairy Industry Building.

In 1935, Iowa State made Petersen the nation's first-ever campus artist-in-residence. He worked on campus until 1955 and was named Associate Professor of Applied Art by the University in 1944. The Christian Petersen Art Museum will be the nation's first higher education museum dedicated to campus public art and visual literacy and learning, said Lynette Pohlman, director of the Iowa University Museums.

She said that one of the aims of the museum is to emulate the sculptor's teaching style and love of people.

"The man that sets himself apart and then calls himself an artist frustrates himself," Petersen once said. "He must first learn to love people - to think with them - before he can begin to create a work of art."

"Petersen always had his studio door open while he was working. Students were able to watch him create these campus icons," said Pohlman in reference to the numerous Petersen sculptures sprinkled across the Iowa State campus. "We want to create a similar environment for today's students," she said.

Petersen died of cancer in 1961 in Calimesa, Calif. while working on his final sculpture, "Dedication to the Future."

Paige MacGregor is a film studies and English major at Wheaton College interning at the Sun Chronicle during the winter break. She can be contacted at macgregor.paige@gmail.com.