Articles published on historical Utah artists.
A couple of years ago, when I was a junior fledgling writer for 15 Bytes, I presented two conflicting stories in the June 2006 edition of 15 Bytes about Henri Moser (1876-1951) and his Logan Ninth Ward Mural. At the time I was a mortgage banker and frustrated thesis writer, […]
Part I: Alice Merril Horne’s Flower Power Alice Merrill Horne loved flowers, and she knew how to use them: as decor, as subjects for her paintings, and as tools for political persuasion. Though Horne is best known for her work as an advocate for Utah art, she was […]
We’ll start the Notes for Bob and Bill feature with a few corrections on our recent article on Louise Richards Farnsworth. We hope to soon be publish a full biographical sketch of the artist, culled from material discovered since the publication of our Alder’s Accounts article. But first […]
We are be introducing a new recurring feature, both in the pages of 15 Bytes and in our blog, Extra! Extra! Notes for Bob and Bill, named for the late Bob Olpin and Bill Seifrit, will be articles, notes, observations, questions and comments regarding Utah Art History. We invite […]
One of the monumental challenges in researching early Utah artists is that regardless of how talented the artist may have been or how many paintings he or she may have created during a lifetime, frequently there is precious little written about them. The researcher of primary material may […]
Those of you who have read these pages with any regularity will have noted that this column has typically dedicated itself to reporting on the history and art of early Utah artists. Earlier this summer, however, it occurred to me — after an extraordinary couple of hours with […]
Few sculptors have left their mark on the visual landscape of Utah to the same degree as Angelo Caravaglia, a longtime University of Utah professor who passed away early last month. Thousands of us pass by his work everyday; if shown an image of one, many Utahns would immediately […]
In Olpin/Seifrit/Swanson’s Utah Art, nestled between LeConte Stewart’s 1937 masterpiece, “Private Car,” and Lee Greene Richards’ well-known, “Dreaming of Zion,” is a painting entitled “Utah Hills, East of Springville.” This gem of a landscape was created by one of Utah’s most revered landscape and portrait artists, Gordon Nicholson Cope […]
“One evening he told us of a friend who came to him for advice. ‘Brother Lambourne, my son wants to be an artist.’ A pause, then a reply. ‘Oh my God; have you tried to dissuade him?’—’Yes, but he won’t listen.’ Another pause. ‘Then, my friend, take him […]
For a couple of years in the ’70s, I was known only as “Elder Alder.” I didn’t much like it, and, apparently, most of the residents of Montreal and Toronto didn’t either. But I can’t imagine being called “Mahonri.” Rather than having to spell that name for everyone, […]
Last month, I introduced you to A.B. Wright, the first of many “Block” artists, that is, a number of early Utah artists who gravitated to each other in the areas of the Avenues of Salt Lake, as well as locales close to the University of Utah. I have […]
Why this insatiable interest in the work and lives of early Utah artists? Perhaps because my office is now located on the 10th floor of the Zions Bank Tower I am receiving some sort of vibe from its predecessor, the Templeton Building, home to the studios of dozens […]
LeConte Stewart is one of my favorite early Utah artists and regrettably I never met him, even though he only passed away in 1990. I do have a couple of close friends who knew him quite well and between them, regular meetings with the Art Nurdz and conversations […]
Feature: Alder’s Accounts Art That’ll Spook You by Tom Alder It may come as no surprise to most Utahns that we are ingrained with superstitions, folklore and other lies—oh, that sounds terrible. After all, most folklore is true, right? Perhaps it is because Utah remains the “Crossroads of […]
No one who has ever seen the movies “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” can deny that they have a fascination with Devil‘s Tower and Mount Rushmore, and I am no exception. I have owned an Infiniti with one of those gizmos that maps out […]
by Tom Alder One of the truly unique early Utah artists was Henri Moser, a classically-trained artist who settled in Logan, Utah and was credited with painting 1,197 works in his lifetime. After his formal training in Utah schools and studies in Paris, Moser returned to Utah to […]
Whenever someone asks me how I go about collecting early Utah art, I tell them my three rules: 1) I must like the particular artwork, 2) I must admire the artist and 3) (optional) an interesting story or provenance connected to the particular work of art will […]
The State Fine Art Collection, begun in 1899 as the Alice Merrill Horne Collection, now consists of over 1,100 works by Utah artists in all media. The pieces are on display in various state and office buildings throughout Utah and many travel with the Utah Arts Council Traveling […]
