Obituary: Barbara Kaerwer was an influential lecturer and art collector

A trip to Europe in 1953 transformed Barbara Kaerwer's life. And then she went on to transform the lives of many others.

Kaerwer, an art historian, lecturer, teacher and longtime resident of Eden Prairie, died March 13 at age 94.

She was born in Beloit, Wis., and attended the University of Wisconsin, a place that retained her loyalties until her death. That's where she met her husband, Howard Kaerwer, a noted agronomist and a developer of specialized grasses for golf courses, who died in 1993.

Barbara Kaerwer started out in labor relations, but an extended stay in Europe inspired her to study art in an effort to understand the cultural forces that shaped modern Europe. When she returned home, she entered a doctoral program at the University of Minnesota, and in 1956 began a 20-year career at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). She started as a publicity secretary and quickly rose to become co-chair of the education department and a senior lecturer.

She created a program to take MIA members on art tours around the world, and she launched a summer volunteer program for high school students.

"It really opened up our eyes to the world of art — not as something way off in the distance or elitist, but as a part of everyday life," said Nancy Johnson, who met Kaerwer while a high school student and remained friends with her until her death. "It was something to be lived with."

Kaerwer saw art as a way to connect people with other people, sometimes living souls and sometimes those from centuries past, Johnson said. "She had such a way of connecting forces," Johnson said. "You'd get the sense that this was a living piece of history that helped you connect with people of another era."

Her specialty was German Expressionist prints, which covered the walls of her architecturally renowned home on a hill in Eden Prairie. "It was a fascinating place to be," Johnson said. "They really did live with the art."

Between 1972 and 2003, works from her vast collection of Expressionist prints, Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstatte were shown at four exhibitions. Almost 400 pieces were later donated to the art museum at the University of Wisconsin and many more to the MIA.

Kaerwer's second love was the natural world, said her niece, Kathy Miehls. Both Kaerwer and her husband supported the University of Minnesota's Landscape Arboretum, and she was the first president of the Friends of the Andersen Horticultural Library there.

Toward the end of her life, Kaerwer decided to protect the land she and her husband had loved and lived on throughout their 50-year marriage. First, about 4 acres along Nine Mile Creek were placed in an environmental easement. Then she decided to donate the house and the rest of their land to the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District. Despite resistance from city officials, she prevailed, and her home is now the watershed headquarters and education center.

"She was determined to make it happen, and when Barb set her mind to things you got out of her way," Miehls said.

"There are three that I talked to," Miehls said. "They broke into tears and said that Barb had transformed their lives. We should all go out that way, right?"