The Most Noble Subject: Artists, Muses, and Inspiration in the Gail Miller & Kim Wilson Collection

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The Most

Noble Subject Artists, Muses, and Inspiration in the Gail Miller & Kim Wilson Collection

November 15, 2023 - March 16, 2024

S P R I N G V I L L E M U S E U M O F A RT Emily Larsen, Museum Director Introduction by Dr. Vern G. Swanson

This publication has been made possible by the generous support of:

Gail Miller Kim Wilson

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Published on the occasion of the exhibition The Most Noble Subject: Artists, Muses, and Inspiration in the Gail Miller & Kim Wilson Collection.

Springville Museum of Art. November 15, 2023 to March 16, 2024.

This book and the exhibition are made possible through the generosity of Gail Miller and Kim Wilson, Springville City, Clyde Companies, and Utah Arts & Museums.

Published in 2023 by Springville Museum of Art. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.

Copyright © 2023 Springville Museum of Art. Catalog design by Ali Royal Pack.

Photographs by Prism Print Shop and Anthony’s Fine Art. Cover: H.L.A. Culmer (1856-1914), Storm in the Mountains, 1913, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 60.25 in.

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Gail Miller and Kim Wilson’s Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Introduction by Dr. Vern G. Swanson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Essay by Emily Larsen, Museum Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Artworks from the Gail Miller and Kim Wilson Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Museum Exhibitions 2023-2024 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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GAIL MILLER & KIM WILSON

Gail Miller grew up in the Marmalade District in Salt Lake City. She and her late husband,

Larry H. Miller, moved to Colorado after their marriage where they learned the car business.

They returned to Salt Lake City in 1979 when they acquired their first Toyota dealership. Over the years, they grew their business into a large financial enterprise including over 60 dealerships throughout the Western United States, the Utah Jazz, and other sports and entertainment holdings. In the 1990s, they built a beautiful home in the Avenues of Salt Lake City, which gave Gail the opportunity to display their collection of European art. She was drawn to the art and artists of Denmark that represented her proud Danish heritage, and she and Larry supported several contemporary Utah artists whose works were added to the collection.

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Kim grew up milking cows on his family’s dairy farm in Southern Idaho. His cultural background is more akin to that of Napoleon Dynamite. He attended the University of Utah where he earned a bachelor’s degree followed by a juris doctor degree from the S. J. Quinney School of Law. He joined Snow Christensen & Martineau, a law firm organized in 1886, ten years before Utah gained statehood, where he spent his career in courtrooms throughout Utah.

The law firm occupied elegant wood-paneled offices in the historic Newhouse Building, and its halls and walls were adorned with one of the finest collections of early Utah art in private hands.

Accordingly, Kim went to work each of his 46 years at the firm in offices that were a showcase for the works of artists such as Cyrus E. Dallin, John Hafen, J.T. Harwood, C.C.A. Christensen, and others.

Following Larry’s passing, and the passing of Kim’s wife, Vicky, Gail and Kim began their courtship. As neighbors who shared many common interests including a love of history and art, Gail and Kim married in 2012. Perhaps as a hint of things to come, their first date was a dinner to honor a nationally prominent historian at the Springville Museum of Art hosted by the Ensign Peak Foundation, an organization co-founded by Kim. It was a proper blending of history and art. Throughout their marriage, Gail and Kim have added to their collection the works of many early Utah artists.

Gail is the owner of the Larry H. Miller Company and is actively engaged in its diverse business interests. Continuing the legacy practice of giving back to the communities in which they work and live, Gail presides over the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation and the Larry H. Miller Education Foundation. She continues to serve in many capacities in fostering quality education and healthcare and in seeking solutions to the challenges of homelessness.

Kim is an emeritus attorney at Snow Christensen & Martineau. He continues as Chair of Ensign Peak Foundation, formerly known as Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, which engages in the preservation of history and historic sites. He also serves in several capacities in organizations supporting education, history, and the arts.

Gail and Kim are pleased to share selected works from their private collection with the patrons of Springville Museum of Art and to support its education programs.

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“THINGS, WONDERFUL THINGS” The Collection of Gail Miller and Kim Wilson “The highest problem of every art is, by means of appearances, to produce the illusion of a loftier reality.”

- Goethe

The first time I visited the home of Gail Miller and Kim Wilson, I was instantly reminded

of the famous exchange between Lord Carnarvon and his Egyptologist, Howard Carter, upon opening a peep-hole into the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings. Before the visit, my wife Judy said, “now tell me about the art you see.” Upon my return home, she paraphrased Lord Carnarvon: “Did you see anything?”, to which I excitedly replied in Carter-esque terms, “Yes, things! Wonderful things!” And thus began my lasting relationship with this dynamic couple.

I already knew that the major Utah art dealers had sold the couple some significant works of art, but it nonetheless shocked me to see the extent of aesthetic quality and historical significance of the “wonderful” art on the walls of their home high above the streets of downtown Salt Lake City. What Sir Joshua Reynolds once said is true with Gail and Kim’s residence: “A room hung with paintings is a room hung with thoughts.” I might say that Gail and Kim’s rooms are hung with magic as well. But from where did these deep passions to collect art develop in the first place? Everything has its antecedent and there is always some launching pad somewhere. What was it for this Idaho farm boy and this Utah city girl?

Kim was only too pleased to tell me about his long-time law partner and mentor, Harold Graham “Hal” Christensen (1926-2012), a Springville, Utah native who grew up across the street from the Springville Museum of Art, which mostly collects and exhibits Utah art. These visual fine arts reverberated in Hal’s soul to the point that he started his own collection before he became one of the principals of the well-established Salt Lake City law firm Snow Christensen & Martineau. Kim cogently writes: This is a real connection…one of those “but for” things. But for the influence of Hal growing up in Springville, but for the involvement of Hal’s parents in embracing art and instilling in him a love of Utah art from his youth, but for Hal’s taking that influence as a part of him as he trained for the law in Michigan and then returned to Utah to practice, but for Hal urging his law partners to invest in good Utah art to adorn the walls of their law office, but for me joining the law firm in 1973 and going to work each day of my 46 year professional life in that environment, but for Hal instilling in me a love of Utah art, and but for me bringing that influence home and sharing it with Gail, we would not have worked to assemble our collection and we would not be having this conversation.

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Despite being born into a family from the farming community of Fairview, Idaho with little cultural experience, Kim showed a natural attraction to the visual arts from early in his life. During his time as an art student at Utah State University, Kim’s older brother Brent allowed Kim to tag along on visits to the Art Barn to see artists at work. Later, Kim’s first wife, Vicky, an interior designer with an art degree from Brigham Young University, helped him to refine his appreciation for art. Kim’s regard for good art grew and, once he had the funds, he began his own collection in the early 1980s by purchasing a work by John Myrup, an academic landscape painter. He eventually came to own more than twenty of Myrup’s works!

While at the law firm and surrounded all day with fine art, Kim yielded to art’s siren call and continued to collect marvelous paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. His love for original art grew as he walked the streets of Salt Lake City delivering legal papers, and he never missed an opportunity to explore the windows and walls of Dan Olson’s Tivoli Gallery, Jack Irvine’s Era Antiques, and galleries owned by David Ericson, David Dee, and Linda Southam. It was in these gallery spaces that Kim became acquainted with the works of artists like Ken Baxter and other early and contemporary Utah artists.

Mrs. Grant Nielsen, Hal’s mother Mrs. Ruby Graham Christensen, and Mrs. “Art Museum” Mae B. Huntington at the Springville Art Tea, 1956. Salt Lake Tribune Negative Collection. Used by permission, Utah Historical Society.

The lawyers at Snow Christensen & Martineau c.1980. Kim Wilson is fourth from the left and Hal Christensen is fourth from the right. Photo Courtesy Kim Wilson.

The structure of Gail’s art collection began as she was influenced by her Danish heritage to acquire a number of beautiful Danish “Golden Age” works. She and her late husband, Larry, were also art patrons to Utah artist Al Rounds. Many of his historic watercolors found their way

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into their home. Stephan Neal’s public sculptures and a number of other Utah artists attracted their attention and received their support.

This “bit of a crazy butterfly effect,” as Museum Director Emily Larsen put it, continued when long-time neighbors and friends Gail and Kim, now both widowed, began to court. Their first date was to the Springville Museum of Art— “of all places”—and it was there that their deep love and affection began to bloom. After their marriage in 2012, their mutual endeavor of art collecting accelerated and fine art began to be a dominant feature of their home.

As they grew in their collecting prowess, their tastes went from “we buy what we like” to “we want the finest quality work that we can procure that is significant in Utah heritage and culture.”

They have assembled one of the three or four most meaningful private art collections of early Utah art. They accede to Thomas Olbricht’s rejoinder that “you’ll forget about the price, but the quality remains.” They instinctively understood that A+ quality artwork is always a bargain.

Gail and Kim share a keen sense of history. Gail and her late husband, Larry, were the primary sponsors of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, and Kim co-founded the Ensign Peak Foundation (formerly known as Mormon Historic Sites Foundation). Together they were drawn to the historical connections of early Utah art and artists. They would heartily agree with Gustav Mahler’s adage that “tradition is not the [veneration] of ashes, but the perpetuation of a flame.”

Gail and Kim have filled their home with art and sustained the philosophy that if you fill your public walls, you’re just a decorator, but if you also fill your closets, you’re a connoisseur—works by notable artists adorn not only their living rooms but also their dressing spaces. They have fine examples of most of the pioneer artists, highlighted by two incredible C. C. A. Christensen paintings. The LDS Paris Mission “Utah Boys” have been a special acquisition area in their collection. They have two outstanding John Hafen oils, and quality works by Edwin Evans and Lorus Pratt. The two artists they have concentrated on are Henry Lavender Adolphus Culmer and James Taylor Harwood. Culmer’s Black Rock (Plate 23) oil is an iconic image of the Great Salt Lake and its most recognizable feature.

The couple does not see art as something separate from life or nature, but rather as something imbued with overarching genius, supreme talent, concerted effort, acute observation, brilliant imagination, and divine inspiration. Shall we say, as Cezanne did: “art is a harmony, parallel with nature.” For them, their collection is an open project, continuing to grow and be tenderly considered for the rest of their lives. In reality we never really own the art we possess, but we are its stewards, tasked with the work of preserving them during our time. Then the artworks, in their fragility, continue onward through the ages to new stewards. We hope that the masterpieces of their art collection will one day again find their way into museums so that future generations may gaze in wonder and themselves be smitten with this magnificent obsession called “art.” We hope that Utah’s first art museum in Art City, might be among those repositories.

Vern G. Swanson, Ph.D. Emeritus Director Springville Museum of Art

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THE MOST NOBLE SUBJECT Artists, Muses, and Inspiration in the Miller-Wilson Collection

What inspires artists to create? The answers for every artist are as varied as their

artwork, but they share common threads. Nature, landscape, travel, faith, family, the human form, and the formal elements of light, shadow, and color are commonalities among many of the artists represented in the Gail Miller and Kim Wilson Collection, which includes Utah and Danish masterpieces from the 1870s through the present day. Painter Henry Lavender Adolphus Culmer (1856-1914), also known as H.L.A. or “Harry” Culmer, once exclaimed that the mountains were “the most noble subject for an artist’s brush.”1 Both his work and background strongly support this idea. An adventurer, writer, businessman, and artist, Culmer spent much of his time exploring, painting, and writing about the mountains of Utah in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The mountains served as his most important muse and also his “most noble subject.” Culmer’s works in the Miller-Wilson Collection inspired the curatorial thesis and research question of this essay and the related exhibition: “What do each of the artists in the Miller-Wilson Collection consider their most noble subject?” The stories and analysis in the following pages aim to answer the question of what inspires artists and explores the relationship between artist and muse. The artwork, lived experiences, and inspirations in this exhibition reveal the human impulse to create and the role inspiration plays in the creative process.

INSPIRED BY NATURE AND LANDSCAPE

For Culmer, inspiration always came in the mountains. At Culmer’s funeral, Reverend

P.A. Simpkin spoke of the importance of the mountains in the artist’s life and work, arguing that his love of the mountains attained a near-spiritual quality. Simpkin recalled, “the Wasatch and the other mountains of Utah were given a new meaning by this—not the commercialization of copper and gold—but the beauties of nature as seen by him. He saw more than he put upon his canvas—he saw God.”2 Culmer’s Storm in the Mountains (Plate 26), the cover image for this exhibition, exemplifies the godliness he saw and portrayed when depicting the mountains.

Reverend Simpkin spoke of the work in Culmer’s eulogy, stating, “the color effects of the storm scurrying down the canyon before heaven’s wind, the clouds black and drear, shading off into a deep purple are symbolic of fear and death, but behind them is the sunshine, symbolic of life, and he saw the sunshine.”3 Writing of his muse in 1892 for The Contributor, a local periodical, Culmer explained why Utah’s mountains were especially inspiring to artists of the American

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West. He wrote, “the mountains of Utah have been pronounced[…]to possess attributes of beauty that are not surpassed by those of any other portion of the world[…]their beauty has struck the fancy and brought forth the praise of many of the greatest painters of America.”4 Culmer’s Little Cottonwood Creek (Plate 24) and South Salt Lake Valley (Plate 27) show his love for these mountain scenes.

Photo of sketch of Monument Valley from travel journal of H.L.A. Culmer, “Diary April 1-30, 1905,” MSS A 79-2. Used by permission, Utah Historical Society.

In 1905, Culmer joined an expedition to Southeastern Utah and San Juan County to draw and paint the red rock formations there.5 On this trip, he discovered the inspiration for his canvas, Monument Valley, Utah (Plate 25).

In his journal, he vividly recounts his initial encounter with this stunning landscape: “Beyond these can be seen the glowing sands of the deserts on the Navajo reservation, from which spring strange monoliths and gigantic pillars, purple and wine-colored; and in the most distant background rises the one white cone of Navajo Peak, ghostly in the far-away blue…”6 In his journal, Culmer took a quick sketch of the valley and its formations, calling them “extraordinary in character.”7

Culmer had a lifelong friendship with the Utah artist and poet Alfred Lambourne (1850-1926), and Culmer’s Black Rock (Plate 23) offers his unique perspective on the subject that served as Lambourne’s greatest inspiration—the beauty and mystery of the Great Salt Lake. Culmer’s rendition depicts the formation emerging from the gleaming water, the light shining through the clouds and onto the mountains in the background. He skillfully highlighted the majesty of the rock and mountain in his sublime take of the Great Salt Lake.8 Though Lambourne explored the Utah mountains and scenery and painted various scenes, including Alpine Lake (Plate 9), it was the Great Salt Lake that served as his ultimate muse.9 For two years, Lambourne lived on Gunnison Island in the heart of the Great Salt Lake, documenting the evolving weather and his life as a hermit in what he fondly referred to as “our inland sea.”10 When describing the mystery and majesty he saw in this body of water, Lambourne wrote, “once the Inland Sea was described as a sullen, listless, deadly sheet of water. Such it is not... Alternately, one is captivated by the strange beauty which the place presents, or repelled by the ugliness that is seen along its shores.”11 Lambourne’s studies of the Great Salt Lake in the Miller-Wilson Collection (Plate 8 and 10) capture his observations about the variations of colors and light. He writes, “there is a witchery about the mirage far beyond the reach of the artist’s palette.”12 Despite this claim, Lambourne repeatedly endeavored to capture its colors and elements. In commemoration of Lambourne’s death, Dr. Geo W. Middleton penned a tribute to the artist that was published in the LDS Church’s The Young Woman’s Journal. Middleton fondly recalled, In every sense Alfred Lambourne was a lover of the beautiful[…]Particularly he has caught the spirit of our great inland sea. The mad fury of the waters in storm, the defiance of the adamantine cliffs, and the peaceful assembling of the fleecy clouds along

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the pathway of gold in our incomparable sunsets he has portrayed in their poetic grandeur.13 The Great Salt Lake, our majestic inland sea, served as Lambourne’s “most noble subject.”

Charles Kelly, “G.S.L. – Gunnison Island p.1”. Used by permission, Utah Historical Society, Photo No. 2186.

Decades later, elements in the Western and Utah landscapes continued to inspire artists in the Miller-Wilson Collection, including well-known Utah artist and professor LeConte Stewart (1891-1990).14 Stewart’s upbringing in rural Richfield, Utah especially influenced how he saw and painted the landscape for the rest of his career. In an interview, he explained: In my childhood there was the discovery of three subjects that have stayed with me: sagebrush across the plains or covering the hills; old, unkempt barns; and that house in the trees. And with them, ‘an impression of a peculiar isolation, an indescribable loneliness which, throughout my life, I have yearned to put down in paint.’ 15 His scene Indianola in the Miller-Wilson Collection (Plate 45) shows many of his “most noble subjects,” depicting the small town of Indianola, an old barn, and plenty of sagebrush. As a child, Stewart was mentored by artist and teacher Cornelius Salisbury. Stewart recalls, “I don’t think I would have painted the desert as much as I did if he hadn’t taken me and inspired me with his love of serenity and beauty found there.” Stewart recalls how once, when he and Salisbury were in Indianola together, a young coyote approached them at dusk and “howled a sweet little song for the artist’s benefit.”16 Stewart liked faded colors and landscapes, explaining, “I hate greens… I don’t like the stuff that comes up and hits you in the face. Fall and winter and early spring – those are my seasons.”17 His landscapes Road to the Village (Plate 44), Green River After Sundown (Plate 46), and Winter’s Day (Plate 47) in the Miller-Wilson Collection demonstrate this love of subtlety. They portray the desert landscape in muted tones and values, capturing the “indescribable loneliness” that influenced his art throughout his career.

The Western and Utah landscapes likewise inspired the twenty-first-century artists Valoy Eaton (1938- ) and John L. Myrup (1945- ). Valoy Eaton finds inspiration in “sunlight and shadow hitting the subject.”18 The play of sunlight in nature, as he captures it in At Sundown (Plate 49), is his “most noble subject.” Myrup’s work depicts the Western landscape in extreme detail.

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His painting High Creek Road (Plate 53) demonstrates his ability to represent the landscape of Northern Utah in a photo-realistic style. When working, he first captures his subject on film and then tries to “hold the emotional effect in his mind” to relay in the finished work.19

DRIVEN BY PLACE AND TRAVEL

In addition to serving as a muse for local artists from Culmer to Myrup, the Utah landscape

inspired many artists hailing from as far away as Germany who traveled to the Western United States to find inspiration in new places. Christian Eisele (1854-1919), renowned for his largescale depiction of Salt Lake City exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, displayed his deep appreciation for Utah’s natural beauty in Autumn in City Creek (Plate 11), a charming work held in the Miller-Wilson Collection. The Journal, a Logan newspaper, explained that Utahns claimed this German itinerant artist as one of their own, “devoted as he has long been to the portraying of our glorious mountain scenery.”20 Utah’s stunning natural setting also captivated Rudolf Cronau (1855-1939), another GermanAmerican artist who spent time painting Western scenery in the 1880s. He described his impressions of Salt Lake City almost a decade later in his memoir about the American West: “Across my vision, stretched the great Salt Lake with its extensive island, towered above it were distant mountain ranges. Around noon we reached Salt Lake City, the Jerusalem of the Mormon State. We saw the temple, the tabernacle, the houses of the prophet tower above the trees …”21 Cronau’s Salt Lake City (Plate 18) emphasizes this “new Jerusalem’’ that emerged out of Utah’s wilderness. The temple and tabernacle are prominently nestled under the Wasatch mountain range with the city in the background. A weathered tree and rocky foreground frame the picturesque city, highlighting the contrast between the frontier wilderness of Utah’s landscape and the city behind it, built by the Mormon pioneers. Cronau’s work in Salt Lake City and his portrayal of Utah conforms to a larger interest that Europeans had in the American West at the time.22 Similar to their American counterparts, many Europeans romanticized the Western frontier, creating idealized depictions of an imagined West filled with promise and adventure.23 However, these portrayals often overlooked the perspectives and voices of indigenous communities who originally inhabited these lands. The artists’ envisioning instead exalts the Western landscape and the settlers who built cities there.

Hermann Herzog (1832-1932), another German-American artist enchanted with the landscape of the American West, traveled through Utah but found his real muse in the mountains and waterfalls of Yosemite, California.24 The breathtaking scenery of California’s Yosemite landscape inspired numerous paintings throughout Herzog’s career.25 One of his notable works in the Miller-Wilson Collection, Yosemite Falls (Plate 5), depicts the robust Sierra Nevada mountain peak with birds soaring in the distance. The lush green forestry in the foreground enhances the stark grandeur of the mountain and the waterfall that cascades down its face.

Though many itinerant artists came from across the country, and even across the world, to

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paint the captivating Utah scenery, Utah artists too had the desire to travel and learn. After several decades of settlement in Utah, the aspiration for more advanced art training and skill level inspired several Utah artists to journey to Paris for professional education in the French academies.26 Among them were Springville-born sculptor Cyrus Dallin (1861-1944), Utah painter J.T. Harwood (1860-1940), and a group of “art missionaries” sent on official missions by the LDS Church, including John Hafen (1856-1910), John B. Fairbanks (1855-1944), Lorus Pratt (1855-1923), Edwin Evans (1860-1944), and Herman Haag (1871-1895). Several talented Utah women artists, including Harriet Harwood (1870-1922), Mary Teasdel (1863-1937), Rose Hartwell (1861-1917), and Myra Sawyer (1866-1956), also joined this artistic pilgrimage.

While in Paris, the artists were introduced to the rigor of the French Academy. Their ability to capture light, color, value, and form improved drastically and quickly, and they brought these skills back to Utah, inspiring and teaching future generations of artists and catapulting the Utah art scene to new heights.

Much of this credit is due to James Taylor Harwood (1860-1940), who studied in Paris two years earlier than the art missionaries and was inspired by nature, all things beautiful, and his family. As an artist and teacher, James Taylor Harwood was one of Utah’s most prolific and influential names.27 Preeminent curator, gallerist, and tastemaker Alice Merrill Horne, explained his significance, writing, “while Mr. Harwood will be remembered as a painter, he will never be forgotten as a teacher.”28 While in Paris, he studied and progressed at the Academie Julian. He married fellow artist Harriet “Hattie” Richards in Paris in June of 1891, with Utah artists Lorus Pratt, Edwin Evans, and John W. Clawson as witnesses. Harriet recalled in her diary that they celebrated with fruit and cake and each of the witnesses gifted the newlywed couple a bouquet.29 To Harwood, the act of expression was the most important muse and in 1934 he said, “in all art the individual impression of the artist is the thing.”30 Supporting this point, Alice Merrill Horne wrote in 1910: The artist is not tied up to one means of self-expression. He turns readily from one medium to another, oil, water color, the pencil, pen, charcoal, clay… Subject also offers a wide field; the figure, landscape, still life, portrait, all have charms for him.

He loves many moods of nature: morning, evening, moonlight, wet weather, snow scenes, cloud days, the four seasons, he often pictures.31 Harwood’s works in the Miller-Wilson Collection reflect this range of skill and interest; they cover his career from the early 1890s to his later impressionist period in the 1920s and 1930s. They capture scenes of Utah and France as well as multiple seasons, subjects, and ideas (Plates 2836).

Though his muses and subjects changed throughout his life, family was always important to Harwood.

Unfortunately, it was also a source of tragedy. His young wife Harriet died in 1922, prompting him to leave Paris to teach and paint at the University of Utah. He later

James Taylor Harwood, Harriet Richards Harwood, and children, Ruth and Willard, Ruth Harwood Photograph Collection, c.1900-1950, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah.

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married his second love, Ione Godwin, in 1929, with whom he happily lived until his own death in 1940. Harwood was a devoted father to the children he had with both Harriet and Ione and painted several canvases of many members of his family. In 1933, in a letter to his eldest daughter Ruth, he wrote, “Nothing can ever replace you to me. My first born daughter who has so thoroughly made good.”32 The accomplishments of J.T. Harwood and his students and contemporaries were made possible because of the foundation built by the earlier generation of pioneer artists who settled in Utah as part of the Great Mormon Migration West. From their earliest days in Utah, the pioneer settlers valued art and they counted many artists amongst their midst, including those known as the fathers of Utah art: C.C.A. Christensen (18311912), Danquart A. Weggeland (1827-1918), and George Martin Ottinger (1833-1917), all represented in the MillerWilson Collection.33 Originally from New York City, Ottinger arrived in Utah in 1862 as a Mormon convert. His dream was to establish himself as a full-time artist and his talent earned him numerous awards and accolades.34 Ottinger traveled widely and taught classes both in private lessons and at the University of Deseret. In addition to his artistic pursuits, he held a full-time position as the Salt Lake City fire chief. In this role, he oversaw the organization of the Veterans-Volunteer Firemen’s Association George Martin Ottinger (1833-1917), Self Portrait as Fire and played a key role in the construction of their social hall Chief (c.1877), oil on paper, 21.25 x 18 in. Springville and headquarters located in City Creek Canyon. Ottinger’s Museum of Art. dedication to both his career as a painter and his service as a fireman led him to spend much of his time working and painting in City Creek. His small canvas City Creek Canyon, Utah (Plate 7) in the Miller-Wilson Collection captures one of his great muses. One particular rendition of City Creek Canyon gained Ottinger recognition far beyond Utah’s borders when it was purchased by Schuyler Colfax, a prominent politician who served as vice president of the United States from 1869 to 1873. In a letter about the sale, Ottinger wrote, “I have been for years struggling and studying with brush and palette to gain or at least approximate to that point of fame, so coveted by all artists. The little picture I sent you has broken the ice.”35 In Ottinger’s version of City Creek Canyon found in the Miller-Wilson Collection, his intimate knowledge of the canyon and deep appreciation for its scenery shine; the skillful depiction of fall leaves and the mountain landscape reveals the profound connection he had with this place and subject.

Place was also important to pioneer artist Danquart Weggeland, who painted many important scenes of Utah landscapes and artworks inspired by his European homeland. Born in Norway and trained at the Danish Royal Academy of Art in the late 1840s, Weggeland immigrated to Utah in the 1860s and was a leading art figure in the first decades of Mormon settlement. Tourists above the Fjords (Plate 2), shows an everyday scene in Norway with tourists backpacking along a trail and the magnificent Norwegian Fjord mountains of Weggeland’s homeland in the background. His homelands, both in Utah and in Norway, served as Weggeland’s “most noble subject.”

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Travel and place similarly inspire three contemporary artists represented in the Miller-Wilson Collection: Al Rounds (1954- ), Jeremy Winborg (1979- ), and Bryan Mark Taylor (1977- ).

Rounds is known for his detailed architectural landscapes and his works in the Miller-Wilson Collection capture Salt Lake City at various times in history. They demonstrate his fondness for Utah where, as he describes, “pioneer history still crowds the fence lines and farmsteads of every town.”36 His love of Utah’s place and history is evident in his charming portrayal of Gail Miller’s childhood home, Quince Street House (Plate 61). His View From Main (Plate 62) captures the same vantage point of the Salt Lake City skyline as Jeremy Winborg’s Twilight Streetscape (Plate 64), though in a different time period. Rounds’ depiction is the imagined view of a nineteenth-century Mormon pioneer looking out at the Salt Lake City Temple from Main Street, while Winborg depicts the scene in the twenty first century. Like Rounds, Winborg “love[s] finding inspiration from nature in all of [his] travels.”37 Place and architecture are important to contemporary artist Bryan Mark Taylor, who writes, “traveling worldwide has been my most important muse.”38 While traveling, capturing the history of religious buildings and structures has specifically inspired Taylor. Describing this inspiration, he explains: The world is going through rapid change, and many of the beautiful and sublime structures, i.e. temples, churches, synagogues, and mosques, are no longer being made, and in some cases, destroyed because of human progress, manmade, or natural disasters. I think it’s important that we hold onto these iconic spaces for future generations.39 His painting Salt Lake Temple Celestial Room (Plate 63) captures the interior of the Salt Lake City LDS temple as it was pictured in a historic photograph taken by famed Utah Charles Roscoe Savage, Celestial Room, Salt Lake Temple, photographer C.R. Savage before 1909.40 Taylor painted Salt Lake City, Utah (before 1909). this scene in 2022 at the same time the LDS Church started renovations on the original temple and its interior. Though historical consultants and professionals are redesigning the temple with historical accuracy in mind, many of the original artworks and furniture have been removed or destroyed as part of the renovation. It will never again be as Taylor painted it.

MOTIVATED BY FAITH AND FAMILY

The temple interiors Taylor admired and tried to capture in his own work included

murals created by a group of Utah artists who were uniquely motivated by their faith. Called as “art missionaries,” these LDS painters, John Hafen, Edwin Evans, John B. Fairbanks, Lorus

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Pratt, and Herman Haag were sent to France to master the craft of painting. Upon returning, they painted LDS temple murals and several other works that show how religious conviction, faith, and family were their most important muses and “noble subjects.”

One of the first LDS artists to paint religious scenes was pioneer artist Carl Christian Anton, or “C.C.A.” Christensen (1831-1912). He is most known for his large-scale, 175-foot Mormon Panorama created in the late nineteenth century to explain the early Latter-day Saint history from Joseph Smith’s first vision in 1830 to the Mormon Settlement in Utah in the 1840s. He is quoted saying, “I can now see the hand of the Lord is in all this, and I only wonder why I did not begin twenty years earlier…History will preserve much, but art alone can make the narration of the suffering of the Saints comprehensible for the following generation.”41 The religious faith and trials of the earliest Mormons were Christensen’s greatest muse and motivated his two smaller paintings, Camp at Sugar Creek (Plate 3) and Mormon Immigration (Plate 4) in the Miller-Wilson Collection. His work inspired the art missionaries who came after him.

When he received the call to serve as a church missionary, John Hafen (1856-1910) wrote to LDS apostle George Q. Cannon, “I sense and realize the necessity of cultivating any talent God has bestowed upon His children. From the very fact He is [the] giver of all gifts and it remains for us to put them to good and legitimate use.”42 As a student in Paris, Hafen worked tirelessly to become the best artist he could to, as he saw it, build the Kingdom of God. After studying landscape painting at the same time as Albert Rigolot, both became masters of capturing the beauty of nature through art. Hafen’s contemporaries praised his landscapes as sensitive, stirring, and, above all else, beautiful. In The Young Woman’s Journal, Alice Merrill Horne wrote, “to this artist nature opens her heart and tells her feelings. He pictures for our joy what nature whispers to him. What he tells words fail to express: where he begins literature is dumb.”43 John Hafen’s work in the Miller-Wilson Collection illustrates his affinity for depicting the beauty he found in nature. Works like the subtle A Roadside Landmark (Plate 21) and the spritely Pasture in Heber Valley (Plate 22) provide examples of what Horne meant when she wrote, “on each canvas Hafen reveals some delicate beauty, some charm that you failed to note until his loving brush brought out the beauty that was hidden. Each picture brings a sweet surprise to the lovers of the beautiful.”44

Lorus Bishop Pratt (1855-1923), John Hafen and J.B. Fairbanks in Paris (c.1890), pencil, 8.75 x 6.75 in.

Springville Museum of Art, Gift of Vern G. and Judy N. Swanson.

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Faith, beauty, and nature also inspired Hafen’s fellow art missionaries, Lorus Pratt (1855-1923), Edwin Evans (1860-1944), and John B. Fairbanks (1855-1944), who studied abroad in the academies of France and en plein air with Rigolot before bringing their improved skills and expertise back to Utah. Capturing the effect of sunlight on the landscape was especially important to Evans; this is evident in Grainfields (Plate 37) in the Miller-Wilson Collection. As a student of Rigolot, he wrote home to the LDS Church leadership exclaiming, “[Rigolot] is much more of a realistic painter than an idealistic one that is why we appreciate him so much as a landscape teacher.” In the same letter he explained what he and his companions were learning about depicting light and the landscape: “Sunlight painting is taking quite a prominent part in modern French art… and as you are aware, Utah is noted

for her sunlights.”45 In France, Evans learned how to capture that golden light as it hit the French landscape and brought that expertise to the way he interpreted the Utah landscape.

The sun hitting the hay, casting shadows and gleaming through the trees in Grainfields shows his mastery of this method and medium. The light and the landscape were undeniably Evan’s “most noble subject.”46 Faith also motivated John B. Fairbanks to create. The idea of being good enough to paint murals for the temple made Fairbanks “quake and tremble.”47 He wrote to the First Presidency of the LDS Church that, “my inability stares me in the face.” He was his own harshest critic but persevered because he “promised my father in heaven that if he would aid me in getting an art education that I would do all in my power to promote the interest of art among His people.”48 As art historian Courtney Davis wrote, “in his study of landscape and nature, Fairbanks made the connection between creation and divinity.”49 His Haystack, Utah County (Plate 19), with the diminutive haystacks before the all-powerful Wasatch mountains, can be read as a metaphor of his own relationship with God and landscape–the small individual shrinking beneath the allconsuming nature and power of God. Lorus Pratt emphasized God’s role in his own art journey and education. As an art missionary, he wrote to George Cannon with gratitude to God and to the Church for funding his education, saying, “we acknowledge the goodness of God in there aiding us by His powerful hand.” But like Fairbanks, Pratt similarly fixated on humility and even feelings of inadequacy, saying, “there is so much to learn away off out of sight in the field of art that goes to make one’s education which we feel that our time and opportunity will not allow us to reach.”50 Despite these feelings, Pratt’s canvases showed his mastery of the craft when he returned to Utah. His depictions of light, landscape, color, and form in works like Jordan River, Utah (Plate 14) and Sentinel Rock (Plate 13) reveal his technical abilities as an artist. These paintings speak to how he found divinity and grandeur in nature, even while feeling he could never fully capture it as an artist.

Personal faith deeply inspired Utah-born artist Minerva Teichert (1888-1976). Teichert studied at the Art Institute of Chicago where she learned from famed mural artist Edwin Howland Blashfield. His maxim that murals should be painted “so plainly that he who runs may read,” was one Teichert embraced and repeated as a goal of her own work.51 A few years after studying in Chicago, Teichert traveled to New York where she took classes from American modernist Robert Henri. It was he who asked Teichert, in an oft-quoted exchange, “has anyone ever told your great Mormon story?” She replied, “not to suit me,” to which he responded, “Good heavens, girl, what a chance…Oh, to be a Mormon…You’ll do it well.”52 Teichert’s religious faith and history often inspired the canvases she painted while caring for her large family and ranch in Wyoming. In letters to her daughter, Teichert wrote that “inspiration has always led me through but I’m getting a bit tired. Perhaps it’s dish washing that slows my spirits down so I can’t sail so high.”53 The institutional LDS Church and Brigham Young University did not embrace her work until after her death, something that frustrated Teichert.

Despite the lack of recognition, she continued to paint and let inspiration guide. Her 1945 painting Come Little Children (Plate 39) epitomizes Teichert at her best: painting large-scale religious themes and subjects so “he who runs may read.” A little over a decade later, in 1956,

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she was painting a similar subject when she wrote to her daughter and grandchildren: I am doing a small mural, where Christ said to the Nephites, ‘Look to your children.’

They did and saw angels coming down from Heaven and ministering unto the children.

I have them giving a basket of fruit and a huge jar of water to drink, one washing the face of a little neglected child. Isn’t it funny I should be doing these when the church doesn’t want my work. I was led to it so there must be a reason ahead.54 Teichert’s other works in the Miller-Wilson Collection show another of her greatest muses, the American West. Landscape with Trees (Plate 41) includes no figures, which is unusual in Teichert’s work, but instead depicts a field of aspen trees reaching up to the large, fleecy clouds and expansive blue sky that epitomize western “big sky” country. At the Falls (Plate 43) and American Indians Observing (Plate 40) both depict scenes of Native Americans on horseback in the same beloved Western landscape. Growing up in Idaho near the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation informed Teichert’s depictions of Native Americans. As the BYU Museum of Art explains, “she depicted scenes of Native American life with a respectful and idealized lens, almost nostalgically frozen in the historical past.”55 Her idealized depictions do not reflect the reality of Native Americans’ experiences in the American West and Utah in the twentieth century and the hardships they faced with forced assimilation, boarding schools, and rebuilding from the trauma of events like the Bear River Massacre in the nineteenth century.56 Though they are not reflective of the lived experiences of Native Americans, Teichert’s depictions of those groups celebrate her own version of the American West and the grandeur and romance she saw there. As Marian Wardle has argued, drama and theatrics played a significant role in Teichert’s work. The influence of theater and pageants loomed large in the way she depicted her own “Mormon story” and scenes of the American West.

As they do for Teichert, spiritual and religious beliefs inspire the works of contemporary artists Annette Everett (1950), Nancy Glazier (1947), and Kathleen Peterson (1951- ).

Annette Everett Sculpting, Courtesy of the Artist.

Everett is particularly interested in depicting womanhood and the experiences of religious women in her art. Her work Duet, Mary and Martha (Plate 55) captures the desire to balance the spiritual with the earthly. Everett writes, “my vision was that we are both these two sides,” and for that reason she sculpted them “standing back to back, wrapped together as one, as Mary raises her gaze toward heaven and Martha focuses on her earthly responsibilities.”57 She continues, “I often, but not always, interpret women and their role in this world, maybe because I am a woman interpreting my changing role in life. Art teaches me.”58 The New Testament, stories of Christ, and the experiences of women–more specifically motherhood–also influence painter Kathleen Peterson. Her painting Other Sheep (Plate 58) depicts Christ watching over sheep both within and outside his pasture. He looks down

20 The Most Noble Subject

in a loving, paternal way at the sheep in his care. Peterson has spoken about the miracle of parenthood and how “that kind of love, to experience that, and to see that potential in a child, is such a gift.”59 For Peterson the best art “stimulates another dimension, a spiritual one. Good art teaches us to feel.”60 Nancy Glazier’s Peace on Earth (Plate 54) represents her own spiritual beliefs, and specifically the Christian doctrine that during the millennium, after the second coming of Christ, the “lion and the lamb shall lay down together.” Glazier, known for her realistic paintings of Northwestern wildlife, painted and exhibited her first version of this work in one of the LDS Church’s International Art Competitions. She was not satisfied with the first canvas, though, and was thrilled when Larry H. Miller commissioned her to paint another version as a Christmas gift for his wife Gail.61 Glazier painted this second version, perfecting the realism, composition, and subject matter nearly a decade after she painted the first. Gail recalls a conversation with Glazier where, “she told us that as long as she had a painting she was working on in her studio, it was never finished—meaning she would add to it every time she went in to work even if it was another strand of hair so she had to move them out when it was time to call it good enough.”62 Painting this scene twice shows its importance to her as an artist, and her quest for perfection speaks to her artistic humility and the human struggle for progress and perfection.

GUIDED BY DAILY LIFE, HUMANITY, AND THE HUMAN FORM

The realities of being human and the struggles and

scenes of daily life motivated many artists in the Miller-Wilson Collection and could be considered another “most noble subject.” These scenes especially inspired Elisabeth JerichauBaumann (1819-1881) and Erik Henningsen (1855-1930), artists who represent an important area of the Collection, Danish masterpieces from the nineteenth century.

Born in Poland, Baumann arrived in Denmark in 1849. As an artist and writer, Baumann won several awards and was lauded widely by the press and her contemporaries.63 Danish master artist Wilhelm Mastrand once exclaimed about Baumann, “dammit, the way she can paint an eye! I wish I could too.”64 Her large-scale painting in the Miller-Wilson Collection, Young Girl Reading from the Bible (Plate 1), depicts a scene Baumann painted multiple times in various ways. Her scenes of young women reading to their parents had a moralizing and educational message about the importance of family, literacy, and religion. She was awarded the

Georg E. Hansen, Photograph of Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann reading, Courtesy Royal Danish Library.

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Thorvaldsen Medal (Denmark’s highest award in the visual arts) in 1859 for painting these works, in part, because they promoted reading during a time when much of the Danish public was illiterate. Baumann’s representations of this particular scene were popular with the Danish and European elite, with notable names purchasing versions, including Sir Charles Eastlake, the president of the London Royal Academy; Queen Louise of Denmark; and Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie of France.

Baumann’s belief in the power of the word, in writing and reading, is evident in the way she returned to the subject of young women at their books time and again.65 Reading and writing served as one of her greatest muses and “most noble subjects.”

A few decades later, Danish artist Erik Henningsen also painted scenes Erik Henningsen, A Meeting of Bogstaveligheden, Courtesy Royal Danish Library. of everyday life in Denmark with underlying moralizing messages. His social realist paintings depict the challenges and joys facing the poor and working classes in Denmark in the late nineteenth century.66 His works follow those of French social realists like Gustave Courbet and Jean-Francois Millet, who “democratized art by depicting modern subjects drawn from the everyday lives of the working class.”67 Henningsen belonged to a group of artists known as Bogstaveligheden, or in English, “the literalness.” This group met for two years and discussed how art, literature, and debate could help make a better society. Henningsen’s A Game of Skittles (Plate 17), Lunch Break (Plate 16), and A Prayer for My Beloved (Plate 15) show his interest in depicting and glorifying the quiet moments of the working class in hopes to improve the society in which he lived.

The realities of daily life inspired contemporary artist Gary Ernest Smith (1943- ), who is known for his religious work and depictions of rural landscapes, farmers, and figures of the American West. One of his gallerists explains Smith’s artistic predilections, stating, “the work of Gary Ernest Smith reflects the artist, expressive but humble, and is grounded in the rural and religious. The social commentary is a sturdy hymn of the beauty of hard work.”68 His own upbringing working on the family cattle ranch inspired both his work and his desire to become a regionalist artist.69 He explains, “farming is hard work; I didn’t want to do that the rest of my life…I wanted more. I wanted to be an artist. I had no idea what that entailed—it was a dream, kind of an unreachable dream.”70 His depictions of farmers, workers, and the rural American West are a way of capturing humanity and his roots. He asserts, “art is a constant struggle for the new insight, for the more effective technique. It is as changing and evolving as life itself. To unite humanity with the earth through art is like combining the body with the spirit.”71 His Farmer in Chevy Truck (Plate 52) captures his reverence for agricultural labor. The abstracted farmer gazes out to the viewer, truck loaded and appearing to melt into the sky, blending into the land, into the earth. Smith’s inspiration and subject hearken back to Erik Henningsen and his

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nineteenth-century depictions of the everyday worker. Both artists make a social commentary about the beauty of hard work and agricultural labor.

A similar commentary can be read in the work of Glen Edwards (1935-2019) and Barbara Edwards (1952), who both mention their desire to paint “real” people and experiences in their depictions of rural Northern Utah. Barbara explains, “my intention is for those who view my work to not only see the color, value, composition and all of the other requirements of a great painting but to also share a definite feeling or memory of the timeless human drama represented.”72 This humanity can be seen in their canvases Minor Adjustment (Plate 48) and August Morning (Plate 59).

Barbara Summer Edwards (1952- ), Self Portrait with Charlie (1984) oil on canvas. Springville Museum of Art, Gift from the Artist.

James Christensen (1942-2017), depicts scenes and moments of daily life as well, but in a more unexpected way. His popular paintings, often described as fantastical and whimsical, carry more emotion and depth than they first appear to. In 2010, he told the publication Mormon Artist:

I use my art as therapy sometimes. I’ll draw the little man burdened by way too much stuff or the fellow that nobody’s paying any attention to. That becomes visual to me very quickly. My brain tends to make metaphorical, symbolic connections a lot.73 Paintings like Poofy Man on a Short Leash (Plate 50) and Gerome Spent His Free Time Daydreaming of Being Reincarnated as a Snake (Plate 51) fit this mold, and use humor and metaphor to capture the condition of being human. Poofy Man on a Short Leash, Christensensen explained, is specifically about his own relationship with his wife, who handled many of the business and household tasks and chores so that Christensen could keep his “head in the work.” In explaining the way their partnership benefitted his career and life, Christensen said, “I did a painting called Poofy Guy on a Short Leash which is directly about our relationship. I would just float up into the air and pop somewhere if I didn’t have her holding on to the other end.”74 Christensen’s genius was taking the muse of daily life, struggle, and reality, and translating it into a whimsical metaphor.

The human body inspired two final artists represented in the Miller-Wilson Collection. The first is Mahonri Young (1877-1957), arguably Utah’s most well-known sculptor, especially in the twentieth century. A grandson of Brigham Young, he grew up in Salt Lake City in what was known as “the block” where he took classes with J.T. Harwood and studied alongside those

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who would become the future “who’s who” of Utah art, including Jack Sears and Lee Greene Richards.

Young is most well known for his depictions of boxers in the 1920s and 30s and the Mormon monuments he sculpted in Salt Lake City such as the This is the Place monument and the Seagull Monument. His drawings, though, are nearly as impressive as his sculptures, revealing his sensitivity to line and form and his innate understanding of movement and the human figure. A critic in 1929 wrote, “no one could teach Mahonri Young to draw like this.”75 Navajo Women on Horseback (Plate 38) in the Miller-Wilson Collection illustrates Young’s unrivaled ability to capture the gesture of the human and equine form, and his affinity to depict scenes of labor and strength in the people of the American West. The human form also inspired sculptor Brian Challis, whom the Utah Jazz, then owned by Gail and Larry H. Miller, commissioned to sculpt largerMahonri M. Young Sketching, 1941. Used by permission, Utah Historical Society, Photo No. than-life-size versions of basketball superstars Karl 26696.

Malone and John Stockton for the Delta Center in 2003.The Miller-Wilson Collection maintains smaller versions of these public monuments to athleticism (Plate 56 and 57). Challis writes that “fluid geometric form” inspires his work, and that his sculptures of Stockton and Malone feature his “most noble subject.” 76

CONCLUSION

Though H.L.A. Culmer declared that the mountains were “the most noble subject

for an artist’s brush,” the artists in the Miller-Wilson Collection show a variety of subjects that provide inspiration and nobility to brush, pencil, canvas, and chisel. From red rock desert landscapes and the Great Salt Lake to religious beliefs, family, travel, and the human form, the motivations for the artists in this collection come from a multitude of places. Their muses inspire all to consider the beauty of creation and the ability of the artist to capture fleeting flashes of inspiration. Perhaps creation itself is life’s “most noble subject.”

Emily Larsen Director Springville Museum of Art

24 The Most Noble Subject

ENDNOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

See “Henry L.A. Culmer,” Utah Artists Project, Marriott Library, University of Utah, accessed October 2023, https://www.lib.utah.edu/collections/utah-artists/UAP-Henry-Culmer.php.

Kenneth A. Culmer, “Some Memories of the Life of H.L.A. Culmer,” A1012, Utah Historical Society Special Collections.

Ibid.

H.L.A. Culmer, “Mountain Scenery of Utah,” in The Contributor February, March, April 1892. PAM 4592, Utah Historical Society Special Collections. For more on the way the Wasatch mountains have been portrayed artistically see Robert S. Olpin, Ann W. Orton, and Thomas F. Rugh, Painters of the Wasatch Mountains (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2005).

Culmer was widely respected as an artist and explorer of the American West. When renowned Hudson River School artist Thomas Moran visited Utah in 1900, he sought out Culmer and praised him in the local newspaper, expressing regret that Culmer had not been able to dedicate himself to painting professionally full-time. “Thos Moran on Utah Scenery,” The Salt Lake Tribune, June 9, 1900, page 2. See also Charlie R. Steen, “The Natural Bridges of White Canyon: A Diary of H.L.A. Culmer, 1905,” Utah Historical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1972).

Miscellaneous Papers of H.L.A. Culmer, “Wilds of Utah,” MSS A-79, Utah Historical Society Special Collections.

H.L.A. Culmer, “Diary April 1-30, 1905,” MSS A 79-2, Utah Historical Society Special Collections.

See “Reproductions Culmer Paintings,” The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar 20, 1910, page 15. Culmer exhibited this piece at the 1909 State Fair where he sold it to Col. E.F. Holmes for a sum of $1,000. See Anthony’s Fine Art, “Historical Documents Relating to Black Rock (1909) by H.L.A. Culmer”, Compiled by Jordan Patchell. At Culmer’s death, Lambourne lauded Culmer’s knowledge of geology and his “appreciation of the grand and sublime in nature.” See The Deseret News, Feb 10, 1914, page 1.

Culmer gives Lambourne credit for naming “Lake Lillian” in Big Cottonwood Canyon when he outlines the naming of several bodies of water in “Mountain Scenery of Utah,” The Contributor, February 1892, PAM 4592, Utah Historical Society Special Collections.

Alfred Lambourne, Our Inland Sea: The Story of a Homestead (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishers, 1909).

Lambourne, Our Inland Sea, 10.

Lambourne, Our Inland Sea, 252-253.

Dr. Geo W. Middleton, “A Tribute Delivered at the Funeral of Alfred Lambourne,” The Young Woman’s Journal, 1926, 492.

For more on Stewart’s life and work see Mary Muir, Donna Poulton, Robert Davis, James Poulton, and Vern Swanson, LeConte Stewart Masterworks (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2012).

Mary M. Muir, “The Education of the Artist and the Artist-Educator,” in “Leconte Stewart Essays and Family History, 1924-1976,” LeConte Stewart Collection, MS 28683, Church History Library.

Both quotes in Mary M. Muir, “The Education of the Artist and the Artist-Educator,” in “Leconte Stewart Essays and Family History, 1924-1976,” LeConte Stewart Collection, MS 28683, Church History Library.

Elaine Jarvik, “A Face in the Crowd,” in “Leconte Stewart Essays and Family History, 1924-1976,” LeConte Stewart Collection, MS 28683, Church History Library. Conveying a similar idea, Gwendalyn McCausland quoted him as saying,“I like to paint the embers after the fire has gone out.” Gwendalyn McCausland in “Leconte Stewart Essays and Family History, 1924-1976,” LeConte Stewart Collection, MS 28683, Church History Library.

“The Most Noble Subject Research Files and Artist Responses,” Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. “John Myrup,” Southam Gallery, https://www.southamgallery.com/myrup.html. Oct 1, 2023.

The Journal (Logan, UT) Apr 26, 1893, page 1.

Staff at Anthony’s Fine Art wrote about this in their essay “Anything by God or Man: ‘Salt Lake City’ (1882) Rudolf Cronau,” Dec 23, 2020, https://anthonysfineart.com/blogs/blog/notes-on-salt- lake-city-1882-rudolf-cronau.

See Emily C. Burns, Transnational Frontiers: The American West in France, University of Oklahoma Press, 2018 and Thayer Tolles et al, The American West in Bronze (New York: Metropolitan Museum, 2013) for more contextual information on European fascination with the American West at the turn of the century.

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ENDNOTES

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

The explorers and itinerant painters of the romanticized American West featured in the Miller-Wilson Collection followed the rules and examples of artists in the Hudson River School of painting, particularly Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. These artists were members of the second generation of Hudson River painters and accompanied several government expeditions to the Western United States. Their paintings and depictions were so popular they helped “shape the visual identity of the American West.” “The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak,” Metropolitan Museum of Art. For information on Yosemite as muse and art in early California see Kate Nearpass Ogden, “Sublime Vistas and Scenic Backdrops: Nineteenth-Century Painters and Photographers at Yosemite,” California History 69, no. 2 (Summer 1990), 134-153 and Anthony Kirk, “In a Golden Land so Far: The Rise of Art in Early California,” California History 71, no.1 (Spring 1992), 2-23.

Yosemite Falls also inspired H.L.A. Culmer, see Yosemite Falls (c.1900) in Springville Museum of Art Permanent Collection.

There is a robust secondary literature on this topic see: Martha Elizabeth Bradley and Lowell M. Durham Jr., “John Hafen and the Art Missionaries,” Journal of Mormon History 12 (1985), 91-105; William Seifrit, “Letters from Paris,” Utah Historical Quarterly 54, no 2 (1986); Martha S. Bradley, “Mary Teasdel, Yet Another American in Paris,” Utah Historical Quarterly 58, no. 3 (1990); Tom Alder, “Purpose and Legacy: The Paris Art Mission of 1890-1892,” Artists of Utah, 15 Bytes, Dec 13, 2007, https://artistsofutah.org/15Bytes/index.php/purpose-and-legacy-the-paris-art- mission-of-1890-1892/; James R. Swensen, “The Frontier in Paris: Artists from the American West in the French Capital, 1890-1900,” Transatlantica 2 (2017); Linda Jones Gibbs, Harvesting the Light (Salt Lake City: Museum of Church History and Art, 1987); Heather Belnap, “Aesthetic Evangelism, Artistic Sisterhood, and the Gospel of Beauty: Mormon Women Artists at Home and Abroad, circa 1890-1920,” in Mormon Women’s History: Beyond Biography ed. Rachel Cope, Amy Easton-Flake, Keith A. Erekson, and Lisa Olsen Tait (Lanham, Maryland: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017).

For more information on Harwood see Micah J. Christensen and Savannah Stephan, Collecting James Taylor Harwood: From Unseen Private Collections (Salt Lake City: Anthony’s Fine Art, 2023) and James Taylor Harwood, A Basket of Chips: An Autobiography, edited by Robert S. Olpin (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1985).

Alice Merrill Horne, “James T. Harwood - The Strenuous Utah Artist,” The Young Women’s Journal 21, no. 1 (January 1910), 16, quoted in “Collecting James Taylor Harwood,” 32.

“Harriet Harwood Travel Journal,” James and Harriet Harwood Papers, MS0543 Bx 10, FD1, Marriott Library Special Collections. University of Utah.

Ogden Standard Examiner Aug 6, 1934, page 12.

Alice Merrill Horne, “James T. Harwood - the Strenuous Utah Artist,” The Young Women’s Journal 21, no. 1 (January 1910), 14-19.

“J.T. Harwood to Ruth Harwood,” Jan 2, 1933, Madge Tomsic Papers, MS 672, Bx 1, Fd 1, Marriott Library Special Collections, University of Utah.

Women artists were also part of this first wave of art making after Mormon settlement in Utah. Sarah Ann Burbage Long painted portraits of LDS apostles including a scene of “Brigham Young and His Friends” in the Church History Museum Collection. Bathsheba Smith, wife of LDS apostle George Albert Smith and fourth LDS Relief Society president took lessons from Nauvoo artist Sutcliffe Maudsley and exhibited drawings in some of the earliest fairs in the Utah territory. “Sutcliffe Maudsley,” Church History, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/ exhibit/sutcliffe-and-elizabeth-foxcroft-maudsley?lang=eng.

For more on this period of art and the artist’s relationship with the American West see Nathan Rees, Mormon Visual Culture and the American West (New York, NY: Routledge, 2021).

Madeleine B. Stern, “A Rocky Mountain Book Store: Savage and Ottinger of Utah,” BYU Studies, vol 9, no. 2 (Winter 1969), 149.

“Al Rounds,” https://www.alrounds.com/about/.

“The Most Noble Subject Research Files and Artist Responses,” Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art.

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ENDNOTES

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Charles Roscoe Savage (1832–1909), Celestial Room, Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah (before 1909), Photo Courtesy Anthony’s Fine Art, Public Domain.

Quoted in “Christensen and the Mormon Panorama,” 1978, M270, Church History Library.

“John Hafen to Pres Geo Q Cannon,” CR_Q_169_b “John Hafen Art Missionary” Church History Library.

Alice Merrill Horne, “John Hafen: The Utah Landscapist,” The Young Woman’s Journal (1910), 89.

Ibid.

“Edwin Evans to Pres Wilford Woodruff, George Q Cannon, and Joseph F Smith,” Aug 8, 1892, Church History Library.

As Edwin Evans’ artistic career advanced he became less a painter of impressionist light and more a painter of modernist form.

“JB Fairbanks to Presidents Woodruff, Cannon, and Smith,” Jun 21, 1892, Church History Library.

“John B. Fairbanks to the First Presidency of the Church,” May 2, 1895, Church History Library.

Courtney B. Davis in The Fairbanks Family: An American Art Dynasty (Springville, UT: Springville Museum of Art, 2023).

“Lorus Pratt to George Q. Cannon,” Apr 15, 1892, Church History Library.

Marian Wardle, Minerva Teichert: Pageants in Paint (Provo, UT: BYU Museum of Art, 2007), 8.

Quotation is cited from a handwritten autobiography in the Teichert Family Collection, see Peter B. Gardner, “Painting the Mormon Story,” BYU Magazine (Winter 2008), https://magazine.byu. edu/article/minerva-teichert/.

Laurie Teichert Eastwood, Letters of Minerva Teichert (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 1998), 125.

Ibid, 295.

Brigham Young University Museum of Art, “Minerva Teichert,” https://moa.byu.edu/minerva-teichert.

For more on this event and Shoshone history from the Shoshone perspective see Darren Parry, The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History (Salt Lake City, UT: By Common Consent Press, 2019).

“The Most Noble Subject Research Files and Artist Responses,” Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Ibid.

BYU Artful Episode, Season 2, https://www.byutv.org/54784a96-4ed6-4f53-a1b1-5b9979344caa/artfulrob-chipman-and-kathleen-peterson?player-open=true&content-id=54784a96-4ed6-4f53-a1b15b9979344caa.

“Kathleen Peterson,” David Ericson Fine Art, https://www.davidericson-fineart.com/artists/kathleenpeterson/.

In telling the story of the commission, Lee Koehler, Nancy’s husband, writes: “Larry had somehow found my phone number in Montana and called. The only thing I (mistakenly) recall seeing in Utah was a Larry Miller used car lot. He laughed at me and said, "You really don't know who I am." I wasn't a basketball fan so I wasn't aware of him. Well after he informed me of the Utah Jazz and the Delta Center, (which was just a part of his many accomplishments) He asked if Nancy would paint another Lamb and Lion painting for his wife Gail. Nancy completed the painting and we delivered it to Larry's house on Christmas Eve. We were there when he showed it to Gail the first time. It was a special occasion.”

“The Most Noble Subject Research Files and Artist Responses,” Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Jerzy Miśkowiak, Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (Olszanica, Poland: Bolz, 2020), 17.

Ibid.

See Miśkowiak, 174-180, for illustrations of multiple of Baumann’s work on this subject.

For more on Henningsen see “Erik Henningsen,” Kunstindeks Danmark, https://www.kulturarv.dk/kid/ VisWeilbach.do?kunstnerId=424&wsektion=vaerker.

“Nineteenth-Century French Realism,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/ toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm.

“Gary Ernest Smith Biography,” Medicine Man Gallery, https://www.medicinemangallery.com/gary- ernest-smith-biography.

For more on Gary Ernest Smith see Donald J. Hagerty, Holding Ground: The Art of Gary Ernest Smith (Flagstaff, AZ: Northstand Publishing, 1999).

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ENDNOTES

Doris R. Dant, “Gary Ernest Smith: Invitation to the Viewer,” BYU Studies Quarterly 31, no. 4 (Fall 1991), 29.

“Gary Ernest Smith,” Utah Artists Project, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, https://lib. utah.edu/collections/utah-artists/UAP-Gary-Smith.php#collapseTwo/.

“Biography,” Edwards Fine Arts Studio, http://www.edwardsfineartstudio.com/bio.php .

“James Christensen,” Mormon Artist, https://mormonartist.net/interviews/james-christensen/.

Ibid.

Critic quoted in Norma S. Davis, A Song of Joys: The Biography of Mahonri Mackintosh Young, Sculptor-Painter-Etcher (Provo: UT: Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 1999), 185.

“The Most Noble Subject Research Files and Artist Responses,” Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

ARTIST IMAGE CREDITS (PAGES 29 - 89)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, Courtesy Royal Danish Library.

Danquart Weggeland, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. C.C.A. Christensen, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Hermann Herzog, Courtesy National Gallery of Art. George M. Ottinger, Used by permission, Utah Historical Society, Photo No. 13220.

Alfred Lambourne, Used by permission, Utah Historical Society, Photo No. 17797.

Lorus Bishop Pratt, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art (original self portrait in Collection of Brigham Young University Museum of Art).

Erik Henningsen, Courtesy Royal Danish Library.

Rudolf Cronau, Public Domain, Courtesy Family Album on Wikipedia.

John B. Fairbanks, Courtesy Daniel Fairbanks.

John Hafen, Used by permission, Utah Historical Society, Photo No.12424.

H.L.A. Culmer, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. J.T. Harwood, Used by permission, Utah Historical Society, Photo No. 12481.

Edwin Evans, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Mahonri M. Young, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Minerva Teichert, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. LeConte Stewart, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Glen Edwards, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Valoy Eaton, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. James C. Christensen, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Gary Ernest Smith, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Annette Everett, Courtesy of the Artist.

Brian Challis, Courtesy of the Artist.

Kathleen Peterson, Courtesy of the Artist.

Barbara Edwards, Mae B. Huntington Research Library, Springville Museum of Art. Al Rounds, Courtesy of the Artist, Busath Photography.

Bryan Mark Taylor, Courtesy of the Artist.

Jeremy Winborg, Courtesy of the Artist.

28 The Most Noble Subject

A RT W O R K S F R O M T H E GAIL MILLER & KIM WILSON COLLECTION

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A RT I S T S B Y PA G E

Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1819-1881) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9 Danquart Weggeland (1827-1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 C.C.A. Christensen (1831-1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

Hermann Herzog (1832-1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

George M. Ottinger (1833-1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 Alfred Lambourne (1850-1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6 Christian Eisele (1854-1919). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

Lorus Bishop Pratt (1855-1923) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 0 Erik Henningsen (1855-1930). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau (1855-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5 John B. Fairbanks (1855-1944). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6 John Hafen (1856-1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7 H.L.A. Culmer (1856-1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

50

J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

Edwin Evans (1860-1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63

Mahonri M. Young (1877-1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4 Minerva Teichert (1888-1976). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5 LeConte Stewart (1891-1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 9 Glen Edwards (1935-2019) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73

Valoy Eaton (1938-

74

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

James Calvin Christensen (1942-2017). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5 Gary Ernest Smith (1943-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7

John L. Myrup (1945-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 8

Nancy Glazier (1947-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9

Annette Everett (1950-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 0

Brian Challis (1950-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

Kathleen Peterson (1951-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3

Barbara Edwards (1952-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4

Al Rounds (1954-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5

Bryan Mark Taylor (1977-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8

Jeremy Winborg (1979-

). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 9

30 The Most Noble Subject

ELISABETH JERICHAU-BAUMANN (1819-1881)

“Dammit, the way she can paint an eye! I wish I could too."

- Wilhelm Mastrand

Plate 1 Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1819-1881) Young Girl Reading From the Bible n.d., oil on canvas, 48 x 66 in.

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D A N Q U A RT W E G G E L A N D (1827-1918)

“He has preferred to employ his pencil with subjects of home life and genre connected with the people. Bringing with him from his native land many of its art theories, perhaps those pictures which represent him best are those most in harmony with them.”

- The Salt Lake Herald

Plate 2 Danquart Weggeland (1827-1918) Tourists Above the Fjords c.1870, oil on board, 17 x 23 in.

32 The Most Noble Subject

C.C.A. CHRISTENSEN (1831-1912)

"History will preserve much, but art alone can make the narration of the suffering of the Saints comprehensible for the following generation.”

Plate 3 C.C.A. Christensen (1831-1912) Camp at Sugar Creek 1891, oil on canvas, 13 x 20 in.

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Plate 4 C.C.A. Christensen (1831-1912) Mormon Immigration n.d., oil on canvas, 15 x 22 in.

34 The Most Noble Subject

HERMANN HERZOG (1832-1932)

Plate 5 Hermann Herzog (1832-1932) Yosemite Falls n.d., oil on canvas, 21 x 29 in.

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GEORGE M. OTTINGER (1833-1917)

“I have been sketching all my life here, [in Utah] or while traveling in Asia, Africa, Europe, South and North America, and many islands of the sea, yet I know this land to be rich in possibilities in landscape painting.”

Plate 6 George M. Ottinger (1833-1917) Castle Campbell, Scotland n.d., oil on canvas, 6 x 8 in.

36 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 7 George M. Ottinger (1833-1917) City Creek Canyon, Utah n.d., oil on board, 12 x 17 in.

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ALFRED LAMBOURNE (1850-1926)

"Autumn is to the seasons, as twilight to the day. Both work a similar effect on the mind. Objectively the artist sees nature; subjectively the poet sees it; and the philosopher, perhaps sees it both ways.”

Plate 8 Alfred Lambourne (1850-1926) Black Rock n.d., oil on board, 13.5 x 12 in.

38 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 9 Alfred Lambourne (1850-1926) Alpine Lake n.d., oil on board, 12 x 4.5 in.

Plate 10 Alfred Lambourne (1850-1926) Great Salt Lake n.d., oil on board, 12 x 4.5 in.

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CHRISTIAN EISELE (1854-1919)

“A Utah artist - for surely we may well call him so, devoted as he has long been to the portraying of our glorious mountain scenery.”

-The Logan Journal

Plate 11 Christian Eisele (1854-1919) Autumn in City Creek 1891, oil on board, 8.5 x 5.5 in.

40 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 12 Christian Eisele (1854-1919) Mount Hood from Columbia River n.d., oil on board, 8.5 x 5.5 in.

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L O R U S B I S H O P P R AT T (1855-1923)

Plate 13 Lorus Bishop Pratt (1855-1923) Mouth of Parley’s Canyon with Sentinel Rock c.1890, oil on canvas, 18 x 28 in.

42 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 14 Lorus Bishop Pratt (1855-1923) Jordan River,Utah c.1920, oil on board, 10 x 15 in.

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ERIK HENNINGSEN (1855-1930)

Plate 15 Erik Henningsen (1855-1930) A Prayer for My Beloved n.d., watercolor on paper, 8 x 6 in.

44 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 16 Erik Henningsen (1855-1930) Lunch Break n.d., watercolor on paper, 8 x 10 in.

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Plate 17 Erik Henningsen (1855-1930) A Game Of Skittles 1883, oil on canvas, 24 x 35 in.

46 The Most Noble Subject

RUDOLF DANIEL LUDWIG CRONAU (1855-1939)

"Across my vision, stretched the Great Salt Lake with its extensive islands."

Plate 18 Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau (1855-1939) View of Salt Lake City 1882, oil on canvas, 21 x 31 in.

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J O H N B . FA I R B A N K S (1855-1944)

“Before I went to France I promised my father in heaven that if he would aid me in getting an art education that I would do all in my power to promote the interest of art among his people."

Plate 19 John B. Fairbanks (1855-1944) Haystack, Utah County 1935, oil on board, 13 x 8.5 in.

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JOHN HAFEN (1856-1910) “But look for smell, for soul, for feeling, for the beautiful in line and color.”

Plate 20 John Hafen (1856-1910) Grazing Sheep 1894, pastel, 11.5 x 19 in.

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Plate 21 John Hafen (1856-1910) A Roadside Landmark 1909, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in.

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Plate 22 John Hafen (1856-1910) Pasture in Heber Valley 1891, oil on canvas, 18 x 30 in.

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H.L.A. CULMER (1856-1914) "These mountains…furnish matter which never fails to arouse the enthusiasm of both artist and poet."

Plate 23 H.L.A. Culmer (1856-1914) Black Rock 1909, oil on canvas, 29 x 39 in.

52 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 24 H.L.A. Culmer (1856-1914) Little Cottonwood Creek n.d., oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in.

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Plate 25 H.L.A. Culmer (1856-1914) Monument Valley, Utah c.1905, oil on canvas, 20 x 30 in.

54 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 26 H.L.A. Culmer (1856-1914) Storm in the Mountains 1913, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 60.25 in.

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Plate 27 H.L.A. Culmer (1856-1914) South Salt Lake Valley n.d., oil on canvas, 8 x 10.5 in.

56 The Most Noble Subject

J .T. H A RW O O D (1860-1940) “In all art the individual impression of the artist is the thing.”

Plate 28 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) City Creek, 1918 1918, oil on canvas, 27 x 34 in.

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Plate 29 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) Day is Done 1892, oil on board, 14 x 23 in.

Plate 30 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) City Creek in Autumn 1925, oil on canvas, 12 x 30 in.

58 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 31 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) Miles of Sunflowers 1927, oil on canvas, 27 x 34 in.

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Plate 32 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) Great Salt Lake 1898, oil on canvas, 8.5 x 12 in.

60 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 33 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) Mount Olympus on Corner of 7th East and 13th 1901, oil on canvas, 13.5 x 19 in.

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Plate 34 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) Fishing Boats of Newport, 1935 1935, oil on canvas, 19 x 30 in.

62 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 35 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) Fisher Men on the Seine, Paris 1928, oil on canvas, 19 x 28 in.

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Plate 36 J.T. Harwood (1860-1940) Saltair 1906, oil on canvas, 11 x 17 in.

64 The Most Noble Subject

E D W I N E VA N S (1860-1944) “What does art amount to, anyway, without character something to hold up the standard of conduct to what is of real worth in life?”

Plate 37 Edwin Evans (1860-1944) Grainfields n.d., oil on board, 24 x 30 in.

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MAHONRI M. YOUNG (1877-1957) “The challenge to every man’s conscience is to choose for his life’s work the thing he loves to do, and once he has decided upon a course, he must work conscientiously to learn all about it.”

Plate 38 Mahonri M. Young (1877-1957) Navajo Women on Horseback n.d., drawing, 13 x 20 in.

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M I N E RVA T E I C H E RT (1888-1976) “I’m constantly being guided by the Spirit of Inspiration.”

Plate 39 Minerva Teichert (1888-1976) Come Little Children 1945, oil on canvas, 56 x 67 in.

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Plate 40 Minerva Teichert (1888-1976) American Indians Observing n.d., oil on canvas, 72 x 114 in.

68 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 41 Minerva Teichert (1888-1976) Landscape with Trees n.d., oil on wood panel, 19.5 x 13 in.

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Plate 42 Minerva Teichert (1888-1976) Bannock War Chiefs n.d., oil on wood panel, 19.5 x 13 in.

Plate 43 Minerva Teichert (1888-1976) At the Falls n.d., watercolor on paper, 12 x 6.5 in.

70 The Most Noble Subject

L E C O N T E S T E WA RT (1891-1990)

“Painting is more than expressing the appearance of things, it is expressing the spirit of things.”

Plate 44 LeConte Stewart (1891-1990) Road to the Village 1925, oil on board, 8 x 11.5 in.

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Plate 45 LeConte Stewart (1891-1990) Indianola 1922, oil on canvas, 9 x 12 in.

72 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 46 LeConte Stewart (1891-1990) Green River After Sundown 1923, oil on board, 5 x 11 in.

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Plate 47 LeConte Stewart (1891-1990) Winter’s Day 1971, watercolor, 6 x 7 in.

74 The Most Noble Subject

G L E N E D WA R D S (1935-2019)

“Growing up in Southern Idaho taught me to appreciate the land, animals, machinery and strong work ethic of farm and ranch country.”

Plate 48 Glen Edwards (1935-2019) Minor Adjustment c.2000, oil on canvas, 9 x 12 in.

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VA L O Y E AT O N (1938) “I find inspiration in sunlight and shadow hitting the subject.”

Plate 49 Valoy Eaton (1938- ) At Sundown 2017, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in.

76 The Most Noble Subject

JAMES CALVIN CHRISTENSEN (1942-2017) "My work is an invitation to let your imagination run wild, explore, and make interpretations spontaneously."

Plate 50 James Calvin Christensen (1942-2017) Poofy Guy on a Short Leash 2004, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in.

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Plate 51 James Calvin Christensen (1942-2017) Gerome Spent His Free Time Daydreaming of Being Reincarnated as a Snake 1991, oil on board, 16.25 x 5 in.

78 The Most Noble Subject

G A RY E R N E S T S M I T H (1943)

"Art is a way of addressing humanity and my works attempt to merge ideas and memories."

Plate 52 Gary Ernest Smith (1943-) Farmer in Chevy Truck 1982, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in.

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JOHN L. MYRUP (1945)

Plate 53 John L. Myrup (1945- ) High Creek Road 1980, oil on board, 14 x 18 in.

80 The Most Noble Subject

NANCY GLAZIER (1947)

“People ask me, ‘Which is your favorite animal to paint?’ I can tell you it is always the very animal I am painting at the time."

Plate 54 Nancy Glazier (1947- ) Peace on Earth c.1997, oil on canvas, 32 x 46 in.

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ANNETTE EVERETT (1950)

"I often, but not always, interpret women and their role in this world, maybe because I am a woman interpreting my changing role in life. Art teaches me."

Plate 55 Annette Everett (1950- ) Duet, Mary and Martha 2007, bronze, 21.5 x 12 x 9 in.

82 The Most Noble Subject

BRIAN CHALLIS (1950)

“I find inspiration in fluid geometric form.”

--

Plate 56 Brian Challis (1950- ) Karl Malone Special Delivery 2003, bronze, 62 x 45 x 16 in.

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Plate 57 Brian Challis (1950- ) John Stockton Threading the Needle 2003, bronze, 34 x 37 x 23 in.

84 The Most Noble Subject

K AT H L E E N P E T E R S O N (1951)

“Good art stimulates another dimension, a spiritual one. Good art teaches us to feel.”

Plate 58 Kathleen Peterson (1951- ) Other Sheep 2017, oil on board, 24 x 24 in.

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B A R B A R A E D WA R D S (1952)

“I am most interested in small everyday moments often missed or seemingly unimportant compared to the social and headline-grabbing events of the world.”

Plate 59 Barbara Edwards (1952- ) August Morning 2001, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in.

86 The Most Noble Subject

AL ROUNDS (1954)

“I seek out subject matter that I have strong feelings towards. I want people to be able to feel and see what I feel.”

Plate 60 Al Rounds (1954- ) City Creek 1992, watercolor, 32 x 42 in.

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Plate 61 Al Rounds (1954- ) Quince Street House 1991, watercolor, 21 x 28 in.

88 The Most Noble Subject

Plate 62 Al Rounds (1954- ) View From Main 1991, watercolor, 32 x 76 in.

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B RYA N M A R K TAY L O R (1977) "Traveling worldwide has been my most important muse."

Plate 63 Bryan Mark Taylor (1977- ) Salt Lake Temple Celestial Room 2022, oil on board, 15.5 x 19.5 in.

90 The Most Noble Subject

JEREMY WINBORG (1979) “I love finding inspiration from nature in all of our travels.

Lately, I paint figurative work the most, but still my inspiration comes from seeing nature first and then thinking about how this place would have looked during another time period.”

Plate 64 Jeremy Winborg (1979- ) Twilight Streetscape 2017, oil on board, 32 x 65 in.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sponsors

Gail Miller and Kim Wilson Clyde Companies Springville City Utah Division of Arts and Museums

Museum Exhibition Team

Emily Larsen, Museum Director & Curator Shannon Acor, Associate Director Bowen Allen, Facilities and Lighting Katharine Bekker, Educator Jenny Coates, Executive Assistant Elena Free, Educator Chloe Hunter, Exhibition Specialist Jerica Judkins, Marketing Kylie Kimball, Registrar Ali Royal Pack, Design Allison Pinegar, Head of Education Mirielle Sanford, Educator Jacquelynn Sokol, Development Coordinator Emma Wilkins, Exhibition Assistant

Springville City Administration

Matt Packard, Mayor Liz Crandall, City Council Craig Jensen, City Council Jason Miller, City Council Mike Snelson, City Council Chris Sorensen, City Council Troy Fitzgerald, City Administrator John Penrod, Assistant City Administrator Bruce Riddle, Assistant City Administrator

SMA Association Board

Jay Hanson, President Heidi Israelsen, Vice-President Jason Packard, Treasurer Chris McAfee, Collections Chair Chris Sorensen, City Representative Mike Snelson, City Representative Micah Christensen Mark Crenshaw Leslie Duke Nate Hawks James Rees Anthony Sweat Dr. Rita R. Wright

Special thanks to Ellie Sonntag, Vern Swanson, and Micah Christensen for their advisement and encouragement of this exhibition and the Miller-Wilson Collection.

Special thanks to members of the Gail Miller & Kim Wilson team including Ann Syphus, Kaye Parrish, Amanda Covington, Michelle Brown, Doug McCleve, Chip Blair, Alan Workman, and Shayne Terry for their help in preparing for and facilitating this exhibition and project.

Thank you to Katharine Bekker, Megan Weiss, Micah Christensen, Allison Pinegar, Vern Swanson, and Emily Dodge for editing and feedback on the printed catalog and essays. Thank you to interns Lucy Jowers and Lindsay Taylor for research assistance.

Thank you to staff at Utah Historical Society Special Collections, University of Utah Marriott Library, and Church History Library for their assistance in approving image reproductions and research requests.

Thank you to the museum staff, volunteers, and interns who assisted with this exhibition and project. In addition to the exhibition team, the teams assisting with photography and installation included Caley Abilez, Brittany Matthews, Gina Woolf, Brenna Bolinder, Áine Droney, Elise Hatch, Lucy Jowers, and Lindsay Taylor.

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2023-2024 S P R I N G V I L L E M U S E U M O F A RT EXHIBITIONS

The Fairbanks Family: An American Art Dynasty

Jun 24 – Dec 2, 2023

37th Annual Spiritual & Religious Art of Utah Exhibition

Oct 18, 2023 – Jan 10, 2024

The Most Noble Subject: Artists, Muses, and Inspiration in the Gail Miller & Kim Wilson Collection

Nov 15, 2023 – Mar 16, 2024 Art on the Highway: The Plein Air Painters of Utah

Nov 15, 2023 – Mar 16, 2024 Inherit: A Visual Exploration of Land, Connection, and Legacy

Jan 18 – Aug 3, 2024

52nd Annual Utah All-State High School Art Show

Feb 3 – Mar 22, 2024

Salon 100: A Celebration of 100 Springville Salons and the Students that Built Art City!

Apr 27, 2024 – Ongoing

100th Annual Spring Salon

Apr 27 – Jul 6, 2024

50th Annual Utah Quilt Show

Jul 20 – Sep 21, 2024

Artist & Academy: Highlights from the Soviet Collection

Ongoing

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