Prolific painter Charles Engebretson ran an art gallery in Ajijic in the 1990s

Charles (‘Chuck’) Leroy Engebretson painted and ran an art gallery in Ajijic for several years in the 1990s. A Marine Corps veteran, who served a decade in Korea and China, Engebretson was a life long artist who, according to his own estimate, completed more than 8000 paintings and 4000 portraits. Yet, his works rarely appear on the open market.

Engebretson was born on 1 April 1928 in Alkabo, North Dakota, grew up in Missoula, Montana, and died in Ogden, Utah, on 21 September 2017.

Engebretson was fascinated by art from childhood. Only three months into a scholarship at the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts, he was asked to teach some of the classes. At seventeen years of age, he curtailed his formal studies to volunteer for the Marines, and was posted in southern China a few months after the end of World War II. Here, Engebretson sold his first painting – to his Commanding Officer!

Charles L Engebretson. c 1998. Railway Station, Chapala. (Collection of the late Richard Tingen)

Engebretson was less fortunate during a subsequent posting to Korea, when he was on the wrong end of an artillery barrage, which left him with a broken back and other major injuries. After a prolonged recovery and honorable discharge, he found that his mobility was better in water than on land, and became a commercial diver, traveling around the world, in tasks related to ocean oil rigs and underwater pipelines.

He also tried his hand at mining for gold in South America, and a number of other occupations, including living for a time in New Orleans and working as a street artist, painting the French quarter, and doing pastel portraits for tourists. According to one account, Engebretson was a co-artist for a 600-foot-long, 10-foot-high historical fresco of Louisiana for the walls of the Southern Pacific Train Depot, and another of his New Orleans murals was lost during a hurricane. Engebretson also painted a mural for the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Westminster, California.

Despite never completing a formal art education, Engebretson studied art wherever he traveled by taking classes from notable artists. His landscapes, seascapes, portraits and still lives employed a variety of techniques and mediums, including oils, watercolors and acrylics. Quoting the artist, his favored style was:

representational with an impressionistic flair. Over the years I have found that this works for me. I have used a variety of styles over time, but keep returning to this favorite means of expressing myself.”

In addition to gallery showings, his paintings and portraits were acquired for numerous private collections, including those of Princess Grace of Monaco, Lady Nancy Oakes, Sir William Bisson, sheik Isa Khalifa of Bahrein, and others. One of Engebretson’s most noteworthy accomplishments was a collection of 392 scenes of the Bahamas, which was purchased in its entirety by Magnavox Corporation.

Charles L. Engebretson. c. 1998. Seis esquinas, Ajijic.

In Ajijic, accompanied by his wife, Sharon, whom he had married in 1973, ‘Chuck’ became known as ‘Carlos.’ Engebretson painted and ran a gallery in the village until early in 2001, when they moved to Smithfield, Utah, where he painted a mural “Just One More Winter” for the Senior Citizens Center in 1997. A heart attack a few months later, slowed him down, but he continued to undertake some commission work in his final years, and taught art to seniors.

Engebretson was one of the 50 artists included in Cincuenta artistas, a book produced by CABA (Centro Ajijic de Bellas Artes) in 2000.

Chapter 42 of If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s Historic Buildings and Their Former Occupants translated into Spanish as Si las paredes hablaran: Edificios históricos de Chapala y sus antiguos ocupantes tells the story of the Chapala Railroad Station.

Tony Burton

Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).

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