{"id":14695,"date":"2012-12-06T01:40:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T07:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=14695"},"modified":"2020-08-14T14:48:10","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T20:48:10","slug":"leconte-stewart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/leconte-stewart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"LeConte Stewart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LeConte<\/a>LeConte Stewart Masterworks<\/span>
\nphotos by Simon Blundell<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the most insightful statement about LeConte Stewart in this very lovely book of over 300 paintings and works on paper — with five accompanying scholarly essays — is made by the publisher in his brief foreword. \u201cHe was very durable,\u201d writes Gibbs Smith,\u00a0who knew the artist from childhood (his mother took painting lessons from Stewart). And durable he had to be, to live to the age of 99 and create almost until the end of his life.\u00a0He \u201cpainted in all kinds of weather, even as an old man,\u201d Smith continues. His output, as a result, was prodigious and, until long into his career, rarely short of brilliant.<\/p>\n

Stewart was this state\u2019s Edward Hopper\u00a0<\/strong>to those with a background in art history, its Andrew Wyeth to everyone else.\u00a0No one could deny his capacity to deftly convey what was essential about rural Utah and make it beautiful if a little wistful to behold, to take what he called the \u201cmystery of the desert\u201d and make it rich and approachable, to turn our mountains matchless and majestic. There was surely genius. But durability was perhaps one real key to his unique, beloved place in Utah art history. Smith writes that he hopes \u201cthis volume will help further assert LeConte Stewart\u2019s importance in the history of American Regionalist painting.\u201d If it is widely read, and it should be, it will do that and more.<\/p>\n

This is first and foremost a picture book, as all good art books should be. And it succeeds handsomely on that level. The reproductions are crisp (though you don\u2019t see brushstrokes), Ron Stucki\u2019s design enticing, the typeface inviting and easy to read.\u00a0The plates are divided into a dozen sections, with titles such as \u201cI Love Barns\u201d and \u201cI Stand in Awe and Reverence.\u201d There are the landscapes, of course, but also the temples and churches, the boxcars and railroad depots, the abandoned storefronts, the little white house in Peterson, near Morgan, painted for us in every season. There are sketches, works done on site and in studio interspersed with well-chosen quotes from Stewart, his wife, former students, Wallace Stegner, Walt Whitman and others.<\/p>\n

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Mary Muir, who knew the artist as a friend and is one of the foremost experts on him, addresses Stewart\u2019s education and major life events from grammar school through the Art Students League and his work with Tonal Impressionism at some length including the development of American Tonalism from various European roots. A couple of photographs in this chapter aren\u2019t sufficiently captioned (where, exactly, is Stewart in that group photo at Coopers?) and a muddy picture of the artist from 1913 isn\u2019t in keeping with the standard of the rest of the book. The essay offers information invaluable to understanding the artist. Muir states, for example, from an interview, that Stewart experienced an isolation, a loneliness, following the early deaths of his mother and siblings \u201cwhich all my life I have yearned to put down in paint.\u201d That\u2019s insight, too.<\/p>\n

This book stemmed from a dual exhibition of the artist\u2019s work held in 2011. Robert Davis was curator of the LDS Museum of Church History and Art\u2019s\u00a0LeConte Stewart: The Soul of Rural Utah<\/em>\u00a0while the eponymous\u00a0Depression Era Art<\/em>was at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts under curator Donna Poulton.\u00a0Both have essays in the book.<\/p>\n

Davis thoroughly covers Stewart\u2019s life, training, artwork and legacy in a meaty, conversational essay focused on his rural landscapes. It\u2019s excellent. He states, helpfully, that Stewart\u2019s style was a composite of Impressionism, Tonalism and Realism \u201cmostly as practiced by American artists from 1900 to 1940.\u201d He also points out that for Stewart, \u201cNature and landscape, God and religion, creative activity and truth . . . these were all part of the same whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Poulton writes, in her comfortable, informative style, that following the 1913 Armory Show (which we learn Stewart attended) the search was on for an authentic American art. Maynard Dixon and Hopper thought this could only be found in the environment and Regionalism was a result. She questions whether Stewart\u2019s landscapes can be strictly categorized as Regionalist but urges that his Depression-era paintings do fall under Social Realism and can be compared to those of Hopper.<\/p>\n

Psychologist James Poulton writes about the viewer\u2019s emotional responses to Stewart\u2019s work (two of the most important having to do with beauty and melancholy) and addresses theories \u201cpertaining to the influence of an artist\u2019s psychology over the creation of a work of art\u201d as applied to him. This is interesting stuff.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Vern Swanson,\u00a0who just retired as director of the Springville Museum of Art, in his own inimitable and erudite fashion, tells us that Stewart was Utah\u2019s \u201cgreatest land\/townscape painter\u201d by virtue of \u201cquality, significance and enduring popularity.\u201d In an astute essay, he places the significance of the artist\u2019s work in perspective and ends by stating that Stewart\u2019s painting began a gradual decline in the 1950s, \u201ca steady diminution of his powers\u201d that lasted through the end of his life.<\/p>\n

It took a village to make this book. The panoply of Utah\u2019s art community in the acknowledgments should be noted before turning a single page. We are indebted.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mesmerizing volume, a real page-turner, perfect with a glass of Cabernet or a cup of cocoa at hand and an afternoon to while away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LeConte Stewart Masterworks<\/em>\u00a0by Mary Muir, Donna Poulton, Robert Davis, James Poulton, and Vern Swanson with an Introduction by William Gerdts. Gibbs Smith, Layton, 2012, 304 pgs. $75.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ann Poore takes a look at the new definitive work on LeConte Stewart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":14661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14],"tags":[911,439],"class_list":["post-14695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-by-simon-blundell","tag-leconte-stewart"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/lecontestewart.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-07 12:24:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14695"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54462,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14695\/revisions\/54462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}