“Purple Mountains” by LeConte Stewart

I hope a few of you will welcome the return of my column this month in observation of 15 Bytes’ 10th Anniversary. Since some of you will be remarking, “I thought we got rid of this guy Alder and his bits,” I should note that my return is by invitation: any complaints should be sent to editor Shawn Rossiter (who I enthusiastically congratulate, along with my other colleagues, who have devoted so much time to growing this online magazine, so vital to all of us who have an interest in fine art).

As most of you know, I abandoned my long mortgage banking career in favor of becoming a partner in Williams Fine Art. When I started writing for 15 Bytes, I was still working for Chase Manhattan Bank and later Zions Bank, plus finishing my masters in art history. People would ask me, “Tom, so what are you going to do when you receive your masters?” to which I would reply, “Oh, I’m going into art history where all the big money is.” Half would laugh while the other half would remark, “I didn’t know there was money in art history.” I conceded that the real reason I was getting the degree was strictly for me. Ironically, one week while the mortgage market was tanking, my degree showed up in the mail (unceremoniously), and Clayton Williams called and said, “I’m 80 now and want to do something else. I think you should buy the gallery.” Doors closing and doors opening. That is why I am where I am.

If you haven’t seen any of my columns in 15 Bytes it’s because running a gallery, and trying to surf this wild economic wave, has kept me pretty busy. Also, I was invited to co-author a new Utah art book with the working title, Painters of Utah’s Valleys and High Plateaus, along with Donna Poulton, curator of American and Western Art at UMFA, and Vern Swanson, long-time director of the Springville Museum of Art. Unfortunately, for the book I have to back up everything I write with facts and references, a tough proposition for a guy who loves to research and report urban legends about quirky Utah artists of bygone days. The book will be in the can (as in movie lingo, not garbage can) by the end of this year and is scheduled for release in September, 2012. It is the counterpart to the earlier Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts, also by Poulton and Swanson, which featured the art and artists of roughly the southern half of Utah. Included will be the history of the Pioneer-era artists, the second generation—those who were born between 1850 to 1870—and those who frequented the Wasatch Mountains, like Alfred Lambourne and George Ottinger, painting canyons and lakes as well as naming many of the latter after their grandmothers, aunts and other kin.

Getting that art history degree has also got me into teaching – at the U, through the Osher Institute. Interestingly my curriculum has been, in large part, derived from my 40 or so 15 Bytes columns. In a way I guess I’m finally getting paid for all that research I did here as a volunteer. Plus I enjoy teaching all these facts and folklore to interested people in the community.

“West Kaysville” by LeConte Stewart

Rereading all of the columns that I authored, I am still dazzled with some of the facts surrounding long-gone artists around this state. Some of my favorite stories center around LeConte Stewart, whose works are on exhibit right now at the UMFA and LDS Church History Museum (see Ehren Clark’s review to the right); the fine examples of his work on display make the quirky stories about Stewart even more provocative. I continue to smile when I think of Stewart’s time spent with Maynard Dixon, a heavy drinker who, when he would visit his friend LeConte in Kaysville, would tote his large bottle of whiskey with him and set it on the dinner table. Zippora, LeConte’s straight-laced, non-imbibing wife, objected strenuously, but ultimately allowed him to bring the booze to the table provided the potables were blessed along with the rest of the food. My favorite story about LeConte remains how he approached the annual inspection of his cars. One day his lawyer son Birge caught him producing a small painting that resembled the Utah Inspection sticker that in those days was required to be affixed to everyone’s windshield. When Birge asked his father why he was painting it Stewart replied that he could do a better job than the state, plus — LeConte being a bit of a tea partier avant la lettre — he wouldn’t have to pay the government the $5 fee. He couldn’t be bothered to paint one for each car, though, so he transferred the original between cars, wedging it between dashboard and windshield with a glove.

Stewart was one of our most influential and prolific artists and I continue to marvel at the Stewart paintings that find their way out of closets and private collections to be appraised or sold. Just this week I appraised three “new” LeConte Stewarts, two of which would have been good enough to go into the current exhibits had they been known of several months ago. The first, “Purple Mountains,” |0| is an unusually large (for Stewart) landscape, completed likely in the late 1930s or early 1940s, arguably Stewart’s strongest period. The second, a very linear “West Kaysville” |1| was painted in 1933 and displays an intriguing rutted road through the center of the painting. Maybe the current exhibits helped coax those paintings out of obscurity. When Dr. Donna Poulton publishes her new book, LeConte Stewart: Masterworks (which will feature over 300 color plates, many of which have never been seen by the public) I’ll probably have to appraise some more. The book is due out before Christmas so plan on putting one under the tree.

Maybe some new stories will come out of the woodwork as well. I only learned the next story about LeConte after my column on the artist appeared in 2006. In the 1980s, Davis County evidently placed an assessment on all residents for one aspect of their sewer water, and as a result, LeConte protested by dismantling his toilet and displaying it on his front lawn. I asked the current owners of LeConte’s home what he did without a toilet and they responded that he evidently “watered the garden” around his house. In Federal Heights, we sort of do the same thing with our tulips in the early spring to keep the deer from nibbling on them—but that’s a different story.

Along with Stewart, Henri Moser has always been one of my favorites, and looking back at the column I published in 2006, the story of the large mural he painted for his home ward continues to entertain. After his training in Paris and further study in California and Texas, Moser returned to Utah in 1929 and agreed to paint and donate a mural that is situated above the choir seats in the Logan Ninth Ward. It was beautiful, depicting a pioneer, frontiersman, and a Native American scout pointing the way to “Zion.” Later, someone in the ward suggested that Brother Moser paint a shirt on the bare-chested Indian since it was thought by that individual to be inappropriate for the interior of a sacred chapel. The bishop approached Henri and asked if he could remedy the situation. After careful thinking, Moser painted an entirely new mural over the original one, comprised of three Mormon iconic locations: the Susquehanna River, the Hill Cumorah, and the Sacred Grove. That later mural survives and is a beautiful installment in historic Utah art, but also a witness to small thinking.

Recently, you may have seen an article in the Salt Lake Tribune [July 29, 2011] by arts writer Glen Warchol regarding an early Utah “bad boy” artist, A.B. Wright. Receiving his art training in Utah and Paris, Wright was a rather conventional, albeit gifted artist who achieved much, including being the chair of the art department at the University of Utah. As reported in my 2007 column, Wright reportedly had an affair with his model, Myrtle, was run out of town on a rail, and retreated to Paris where he was later detained by the Nazis in an internment camp. Warchol’s article expands on the story. The “incident” was reported to then University president, George Thomas who recruited a panel of twenty members of the U’s faculty. According to Kurt Henrichsen of the Church History Museum, the panel proceeded to investigate charges that had been leveled against Wright by eccentric colleague, Mabel Frazer. Remember her? She’s the one who lived in a tiny house on University Street and slept in a piano (see the February 2007 edition). The U investigative board weighed the evidence, including charges by Frazer that Wright had paid for an abortion for one of his models. After reviewing all evidence, Wright was completely exonerated, resulting in Frazer being compelled to write a letter of apology to Wright, who by then (1937) had been art department chair for five years. Turns out that, according to the evidence, the model’s “abortion” was actually an appendectomy. Despite being cleared of charges, the rumors persisted and ultimately Wright left for Paris where he lived and painted until his death a few years after the end of WWII. Wright had some kind of agreement with his wife, who moved to California while the handsome and dashing artist made his way to Paris. Interesting arrangement. Another tidbit is that Wright had a mistress, Jeanne Warnet, who died in 1971 and was buried next to the “artiste Americain.”

Painting of a nude by A.B. Wright

Accompanying the Tribune article, a photo of a 1930 Wright painting, discovered in an antique shop by Russ Fjeldsted, shows a portrait in which the face of the model has been rubbed off.|2| I contacted Fjeldsted who believes the erasure was made so that no one could positively identify her—possibly because she factored into the mysterious rumors. It is these types of stories that keep me intrigued by Utah art history and as I have asserted before, it is difficult for me to separate the artists and their art, from the stories that surround both. When I meet an artist and see his or her art, I quiz them on their motives for painting, and get darned nosey about their lives since I met so few early Utah artists and only get to know most from text and hearsay. I hope you artists are creating your own stories to accompany your wonderful art. Maybe not activities equal to AB Wright, but nonetheless stimulating.

Tom Alder’s next class at the University of Utah (Osher Institute) is entitled Early Utah Art History from 1847 to 1940 and begins in November. Painters of Utah’s Valleys and High Plateaus is scheduled for publication in September 2012.

Tom Alder

Tom Alder, a Salt Lake City native, left a 30-year mortgage banking career in 2009 to open Alderwood Fine Art, specializing in early Utah art. He held an MA in Art History, taught at the University of Utah, and served on various boards in the cultural community. He died in 2018.