M.O. Bue Collection
Home of the Mathias O. Bue Photography Collection
Mathias O. Bue was born in Gudbrandsdalen Norway in 1889. He learned the photography trade as a young man. In 1908, he immigrated to Minnesota with his brother where they opened a primitive photography studio in a farm outbuilding in Granite Falls. Two years later, Matt Bue bought the gallery of A. N. Hoppeland in Cottonwood, MN. In 1912, he arrived in Fillmore County where he took over the Bersagel studio in Lanesboro. Meeting with commercial success, he combined the studio with a gift shop and worked as a portrait and landscape photographer until retiring in 1946.
As a photographer Bue was not only an artist, he also owned a keen historian’s eye. Although the majority of his work consisted of typical studio portraits of families, or local graduation and confirmation group shots, he made it a point of traveling the back roads to shoot life as it happened. His lens captured scenic landscapes, businesses, farms, civic events, new construction, scenes of accidents and destruction, and interiors of private homes. He documented a varied collection of county history for over three decades.
Longtime Lanesboro historian, Don Ward, came into possession of the Bue negative collection and generously presented the majority of it to our museum in 1990. Our vault holds well over 20,000 glass and celluloid negatives – a virtual historical picture book that provides a glimpse of a period, places, and people that exist now only in memory and literature.
Minnesota Reflections — Minnesota Digital Library
Please take a moment to browse images from 128 Bue glass negatives chosen to be digitized by Minnesota Digital Library and uploaded to the Minnesota Reflections website. We’re proud of our Bue photography collection and the part it plays in interpreting Minnesota history!
M. O. Bue PowerPoint Presentation Calendar 2012
Executive director Debra takes the show on the road to…
August 2, 2012
Sons of Norway - La Crosse WI
August 9, 2012
Sons of Norway - Spring Grove MN
September 7, 2012
Cottage House Inn - Lanesboro MN
September 17, 2012
Lions Club: F & M COMMUNITY BANK COMMUNITY ROOM – Preston MN
September 19, 2012
Spring Valley Kiwanis - Spring Valley MN
