Painter, educator, early Utah modernist
Phillip Henry Barkdull was a rural Utah native whose artistic promise emerged unusually late. After working on his family’s farm and attending small country schools, he enrolled at Brigham Young High School at age 23, graduating in 1914 and quickly gaining early exhibition success in Utah and New York. Much of his career was spent teaching—first at Dixie Normal College and later in Hurricane, Millard County, and Provo—while he pursued further studies, eventually completing a degree at BYU in 1928.
That same year Barkdull encountered Swedish-American artist Sven Birger Sandzén, whose bold color and modernist technique transformed Barkdull’s approach. During a brief, prolific period from 1928 to 1931, he produced the expressionist landscapes for which he is remembered, including the celebrated Designed Landscape: Symphony in Color. His bright, stylized canvases stood apart from the more conservative work of his Utah peers and were well received by critics.
A devastating accident in the early 1930s effectively ended his ability to paint in this style. Barkdull continued to teach—serving for a time as interim head of BYU’s art department and later as supervisor of arts and crafts in Logan—but produced little new work. Though his artistic career was brief, his surviving paintings are regarded as some of the most vivid and distinctive examples of early Utah modernism.
15 Bytes Article: A Brief Explosion of Style: Phillip Henry Barkdull
Springville Museum of Art page: includes biographical information and two images of works from the museum’s collection.
Utah Artists Project: biographical information.
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Categories: Historical Utah Artists
