Artist Nick Oberling charged with allegedly trying to electrocute partner

Famed local landscape artist Nicholas Oberling faces a criminal endangerment charge in Flathead County District Court for allegedly wiring his significant other’s shower soap dish to deliver electrical shocks.

Oberling was listed as in the county jail as of late afternoon Tuesday after being booked over the weekend. According to court documents, authorities arrested him after responding to a July 23 report of an assault at a U.S. 2 building in Hungry Horse.

Deputies with the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office found a partially exposed wire running from a soap dish in the home’s shower through a drywall patch and toward an outlet on the other side, court documents said. At that end, the wire was bent around another set of partially stripped wires that were plugged into an outlet.

The woman who met deputies at the door identified herself as Oberling’s soon-to-be ex-significant other. She told deputies that she received a “big shock” when she reached for her soap while taking a shower earlier. When she grabbed it with her other hand, she got shocked again, according to court documents.

Dropping the soap to the bottom of the shower, she noticed the wire running into the soap dish, she said.

She reported calling Oberling soon after. Oberling allegedly came over and admitted to trying to shock her. He then tried to take her phone, leading to a fight, she told deputies.

Oberling owns Glacier Fine Art, also located on U.S. in Hungry Horse, and is known for his artwork featuring Glacier National Park. A fixture in the Flathead Valley in recent decades, he spent years on the Hockaday Museum of Art’s board of directors from 2000 to 2008.

According to his studio’s website, he studied at the Art Students League of New York City.

Oberling’s arraignment before Judge Robert Allison is scheduled for Aug. 11.

The Hungry Horse News had visited with Oberling Friday just before he was formally charged. He had just organized a plein air paint out of the Flathead River with a host of other artists.

Editor's note: The story has been corrected to reflect that the date of the alleged incident was July 23, not June 23.