Jenny Champoux: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Latter-day Saint Art, a limited series podcast from Wayfare Magazine. I'm your host, Jenny Champoux. In Latter-day Saint Art, I'll guide you through an examination of the artistic tradition of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Each guest is a contributor to the new book, Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader, from Oxford University Press and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts. Please note that a transcript of each episode, along with images of the artworks discussed, is posted at wayfaremagazine.org. In this episode, we'll learn about efforts by early Utah artists to improve their skills and stay connected to the cosmopolitan art world. For many, this meant traveling back east to New York. For some, it meant traveling all the way to Paris, France. The experiences and training they gained there would affect Utah art styles and culture for years to come. We'll also discuss mid-20th century opposition to avant garde [00:01:00] movements, like modernism, in Utah and reflect on whether that history still influences Latter-day Saint preferences today. Our guests in this episode are Glen Nelson and Linda Jones Gibbs. Glen Nelson is a co-founder of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, and he hosts the Center's podcast. He is the author of 33 books, as well as essays, articles, short fiction, and poetry. As a ghostwriter, three of his books have been non-fiction New York Times bestsellers. He curated the museum exhibition John Held, Jr. at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art, and co-curated Joseph Paul Vorst: A Retrospective, at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah. His most recent books include the first biography of Joseph Paul Vorst and a volume about the lost fiction of John Held, Jr. He has two chapters in this new book. One is, “LDS Artists and the Art Students League of New York,” and [00:02:00] the other is titled, “George Dibble and Modernism in Utah.” Linda Jones Gibbs, an independent scholar living in New York, has a PhD in art history from the City University of New York, with specialties in American and modern art. She was a former curator at the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City and at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art. She has written extensively on American artists in France and on the artist Maynard Dixon. Her essay in the Oxford volume is, “The Paris Art Mission.” Glen and Linda are both passionate about studying Latter-day Saint art history and teaching others about it. I guarantee you're going to learn something new from them today. So, let's get started! Linda and Glen, thanks for joining us on episode three of Latter-day Saint Art. Glen Nelson: Thank you for having me. Linda Gibbs: Thank you so much. Jenny Champoux: I'm so delighted to get to talk to two of the best scholars [00:03:00] helping to recover the history of Latter-day Saint art. I think the events you highlight in your chapters are not well known to most members, but it's important history that really helps us understand the development of our visual culture. So, I'm grateful to you for the good work you're doing. Linda, I want to start with you. You were working at the Church History Museum in its earliest days in the 1980s and then also at the BYU Museum of Art when it first opened in the 90s. So as someone who's been part of the development of this field studying Latter-day Saint visual culture, really since the beginning in those early days, what, what changes have you since then, in terms of how we're thinking about Latter-day Saint visual culture and do you see any areas that you think need further exploration and scholarship right now? Linda Gibbs: There's been a wonderful explosion since those early days. When I first started working [00:04:00] at the church historical department, the art collection was uncatalogued and unknown, as was BYU's collection. If you go back to really not that long ago, I mean, it is what, 35 years or so, the present, there's been a tremendous expansion of knowledge and scholarship, a great infusion of interest in women's art, in international LDS art. I see it only getting better. As artists, as the church grows and expands and artists are highlighted in various venues in Utah. I don't really perceive of big gaps at this point. I see it just a wonderful expansion. Jenny Champoux: Yeah, it is a really exciting moment. And Glen, I think you have a lot to do with [00:05:00] that as well. You have the distinction of having two chapters in this book. And you also helped write the foreword along with Richard Bushman. The book itself wouldn't have happened without your longstanding commitment to the study of Latter-day Saint art. Can you tell us a little bit about your work at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in New York and how this book grew out of your projects there? Glen Nelson: Well, I'm happy to. I don't know if I can remember it very well, um, but Richard Bushman, contacted me. He had worked with me previously when I, I had an organization called Mormon Artist Group for a few decades. And he said, let's get together and see what we can do with visual art. If that appeals to you. And I said, yes, it appeals to you very much. And so we had a list of big projects to do. And one of them was to try to figure out what the canon would be, but also thematically what the canon might be. So there were greatest hits for sure. There were usual suspects [00:06:00] for sure. What weren't we kept covering and what was still to be discovered? And so one of the things that I'm happiest about is gathering these scholars. We made a list of people who have PhDs in art history or who were teaching at the university level or were executive directors at museums, that sort of level. And there were about 50 of them. And the majority of them didn't know each other, didn't live close to each other. And so when this book came about, it was kind of a social experiment. Can we get people together? Can they write about stuff that they actually care about? Not assigned to them, but what they really care about, and then it all evolved from there. Jenny Champoux: Yeah, I love that you had the authors really tackle projects that they were passionate about, and I think that really came through in the book, that there's just, there's such variety and, but the passion really comes through and it gives you a sense of how much there is still to [00:07:00] explore in this history. Glen Nelson: I think there are lots of holes, and anybody who travels the world knows that it's impossible to write a global story of anything. But I don't think of this book as being the be all and end all, the final word on anything. I, but I do love it as being an initial resource. Jenny Champoux: Yeah, thank you. All right, so let's get into your chapters from the book. Linda, yours is on the, your chapter is on the Paris Art Mission of 1890, and, I know you were involved with an exhibition years ago at the Church History Museum, and I think you wrote the catalog for that exhibition as well, is that right? Linda Gibbs: I did. It was 1987. It was called Harvesting the Light: The Beginning of the Paris Art Mission - artists, missionaries. Jenny Champoux: Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful catalog and I love that you were able to draw on your previous scholarship and expertise [00:08:00] to write this excellent chapter. So for those who aren't familiar, can you tell us what, what was the Paris Art Mission? Why were Church leaders wanting to send members of the church to Europe to study art? Linda Gibbs: So their, their wanting to send was really a response to a request, a very fervent request by a group of artists, most notably John Hafen, who wrote to the First Presidency after actually met with George Q. Cannon of the First Presidency in 1890, and he said, you know, we've got this beautiful temple that's about to be completed. It had been under construction for 40 years, the Salt Lake Temple. What are we going to do to decorate the interior? Now, the three previous Utah temples, Manti, St. George, and Logan had murals. So it was an expectation that the Salt Lake Temple as the crowning jewel in the temple environment [00:09:00] should have murals and nothing had been discussed. These were artists who were getting their training as best they could in Utah. I think they had a dual motivation in mind. One was, of course, to be able to paint the murals in the Salt Lake Temple, they also, I believe, saw this as a way they could get some training by requesting that the church send them to Paris to study, get their skills improved so they could come back and really do justice to the Salt Lake Temple. And so they fervently asked the Church to consider the request. This is in the 12th hour. You know, the dedication is coming up and no murals are on the walls and within weeks, the Church presidency came back and told John Hafen [00:10:00] we will send you. And so they had to work out some details of the money and whatnot. And, within, gosh, a few months, they were on a train to New York and on a ship to Liverpool and on another to Paris. Jenny Champoux: Wow. Linda Gibbs: So it was quite a quick dramatic story. Jenny Champoux: Yeah, so you mentioned John Hafen. Were there other artists involved in this group? Linda Gibbs: Yes, the initial group was four artists, John Hafen, John B. Fairbanks, Edwin Evans, and Lorus B. Pratt. They were all friends. They knew each other just through the art world in Utah. And then, later on, they would add a fifth, Herman Haag, who came, the following year and, very young, 19 years old, I believe the age of missionaries, but he, this was not a typical mission by any means, but they were, it was called an art mission because they were [00:11:00] literally set apart by the General Authorities of the Church and given this express charge to go see all that they could see, learn all that they could learn in
