Klassen, John P. (1888-1975)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1975 Aug 21 p. 3

Birth date: 1888

text of obituary:

Well-Known Artist Dies at Bluffton

Bluffton, Ohio. — Funeral services were held at the First Mennonite Church Aug. 9 for John P. Klassen, 87, professor emeritus of art at Bluffton College. Dr. Lloyd L. Ramseyer officiated.

Prof. Klassen died Aug. 6 at the Mennonite Memorial Home here. His wife, the former Anna Dyck, preceded him in death in June of this year.

A native of Chortitza in the Russian Ukraine, Klassen studied in Basel, Switzerland and received his art training in Berlin and Munich, Germany. He returned to the Ukraine in 1914 and was among those experiencing the terrors of the Russian revolution in the early 1920s. He came to Canada with his wife and young son in 1923 and to Bluffton the following year to join the Bluffton faculty.

Prof. Klassen taught at Bluffton until 1958. He produced many works of art, with sculpture as his major field of interest. He also worked extensively in wood carving and ceramics, and after retirement traveled widely to present his lecture on the potter's wheel.

He and his wife received national publicity in 1933 when they were granted U. S. citizenship after having been denied citizenship two years earlier for refusal to swear to bear arms in defense of the constitution on grounds of their pacifist beliefs.