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.
When I was a little kid in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I was enamored of the City and County Building on Washington Square. My father, Carleton Caine Alder, worked there for years as the chief deputy county treasurer and when I visited Dad, I wandered around […]
A profile of Hilma Mole Payne, on the occasion of her retrospective at the Springville Museum of Art.
On the occasion of our ten-year anniversary, Tom Alder reexamines some of his old columns and shares a few new stories he has picked up along the way.
Painting mocking modern artists, by David Howell Rosenbaum, courtesy Clayton R. Williams The course my art history research takes often leaves me emotional. I cannot comprehend the sacrifice that artists must make in order to put their talent and message out there. Maybe I’m too much of a […]
Marxism. Fanciful naïve art. Vernal. I doubt any of us would be able to connect these three terms were they to appear on one of those comprehensive college entrance exams requiring you to conclude how they are all related. But I like that they are all connected, probably […]
As I approach these columns, I generally start with the usual background material (born, died, did a bunch of stuff in between), supplemented by search engine snippets sent my way by my beloved editor Shawn Rossiter. Ever since Rossiter mentioned Utah Digital Newspapers as one of his sources, I have […]
When I see early Utah artworks that reveal something about our history, I’m reminded of a conversation I once had with Bob Olpin. During an American art history class at the U, I was impressed with Bob’s command, not only of art history but American history as well. […]
A signature style and a catchy name to put on the signature are helpful when trying to make it as an artist. I can tell when Vladimir Ashkenazy is playing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 because he does such a superior job. His name, though, doesn’t exactly roll off my […]
Though he lived to be eighty, Phillip Henry Barkdull’s artistic career is known by a short three-year spurt of artistic output cut short by tragedy. Barkdull came to his style late, and years as a teacher meant he didn’t have much time to devote to his own work, […]
I once made the statement that John B. Fairbanks’ greatest legacy was not his two years in Paris as an LDS art missionary(1890-92) nor his large body of work (primarily landscapes). His true legacy, I have reasoned, is his progeny of talented children and their offspring. The family […]
Though by lineage I’m 100% British, since I come from Knudsen Corner and remain in the minority of those who use the hard “k” sound for Knudsen instead of “Nudson” or “Noodson,” in a way I’m an honorary Scandinavian; or so I told myself this weekend when I […]
During the past few months, I must have had an average of ten phone calls per week either telling me who to vote for or asking my opinion about the important matters of the day. One of those important matters, as evidenced by frequent references, was the idea […]
Among the list of highly talented Utah artists who passed on decades before reaching their potential is Donald Beauregard (1884-1914). Born in Fillmore, Utah to Mormon immigrant ranchers, he was an energetic and enthusiastic lover of nature and art. A posthumous reports says that at the age of […]
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, […]
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 […]
Many consider James Tayor Harwood [1860-1940] to be the father of Utah art, so no mere column could hope to describe his life and contributions to our cultural history. It would be like sitting at the keyboard and writing a 1,500 word essay about George Washington. My first […]
