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Governors portraits will return to State Capitol

The Minnesota Historical Society will return all 38 portraits of former Minnesota governors for simultaneous display, after state lawmakers took up the issue in a House committee.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Minnesota Historical Society will return all 38 portraits of former Minnesota governors to the State Capitol, for simultaneous display, after state lawmakers intervened.

Since 1944 the tradition has been to hang portraits of former governors in the halls of the Capitol Building, but those paintings were all crated up and removed two years ago as part of the massive restoration project.

The historical society executive committee had planned to return just the seven most recent paintings to the Capitol after the restoration project ends, and then bring the others 31 paintings back in groups of seven on a rotating basis.

"Our thinking was that we could bring more focus to the governor’s portraits, as well as more context and learning if we exhibited them in groups and rotated the groups and themes over time," D. Stephen Elliott, MNHS executive director, told KARE Thursday.

"We can install all of the Governor's portraits. We're pleased that people are so interested in them."

Parts of the Capitol are run as a museum and are controlled by MNHS.

Rep. Dean Urdahl of Grove Center thought the historical society needed some nudging, so he introduced a bill requiring that all of the former governor's portraits be displayed at all times inside the Capitol.

"A lot of people who only visit the Capitol once or maybe twice in their lifetimes would never be exposed to the other governors," Rep. Urdahl said, reacting to the rotation idea.

Urdahl teaches and writes about Minnesota History and led the effort in the legislature to restore the Capitol. He also served on the Capitol Preservation Commission that has overseen the $320 million restoration project.

"Those governors are part of the fabric of the state of Minnesota. They made our history, some in more important ways than others, but I think they all deserve to recognized.

The House Government Operations committee voted Thursday to send Urdahl's bill to the general register, meaning it could be taken up by the full House. But it became a moot point later that day, when an ad hoc committee at the MNHS agreed to return the portraits.

Urdahl agrees with the need for more context in the displays for the governors portraits, when the begin to return in April.

There's a logistical issue that may prevent some of those portraits from return to their original positions in the Capitol corridors.

As part of the restoration project, many of the large, ornate floor lamp torchieres were returned to their original locations. Some of those lamp fixtures are now standing in front of the rectangular spaces where the governors portraits were originally hung.

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