Donald Beauregard (1884-1914)
The Dresden
Oil on board
5.50 x 7 inches
Donald Beauregard was born 1884 in Fillmore, Utah, the son of a rancher. His family recognized his artistic talent early, and he had his first art lesson at the age of eleven by an eastern teacher who was visiting central Utah. Beauregard felt confined in Fillmore, and in 1900, he left town, wandering for a while and then ending up at Brigham Young University. He studied there until 1903. During this year, he left BYU and continued his education at the University of Utah, studying under Edwin Evans for three years and becoming his assistant in 1904. In 1906, Beauregard graduated from the University with high honors. Evans said, "He was a brilliant student who excelled in every phase of academic work." Beauregard demonstrated his versatility by winning honors in art, oration, and debate.
In this same year of 1906, he saved his money until he could afford to travel to Europe, where he studied at the Academie Julian in Paris. While in Paris, Beauregard won many prizes for his work, including a first prize, with the work becoming part of the school's permanent collection. He financed his stay by writing special features and by drawing cartoons for newspapers. Beauregard made many discoveries about art while in Paris. At first, he followed Monet and the Impressionists and traveled and painted in Flanders. Later, he looked to Gauguin and Cezanne and began to incorporate cubist ideas into his expressionist landscapes.
In 1908, he returned to Utah and became the Director of Art in the Ogden City School District. Before going to Europe, Beauregard had won first prize in the Utah Art Institute exhibit, and in 1909, after his return, he again won first prize. This second award helped him get a job as an illustrator for Western Monthly magazine and as correspondent for the Deseret News. Summer archaeology work led eventually to contact with Frank Springer, a wealthy New Mexico art patron, who became Beauregard's sponsor. Springer bought some of Beauregard's paintings and financed his second trip to Europe, where he spent the entire trip painting and sketching in Spain, France, and Germany. These paintings sold well to Europeans, and after his return, to Americans.
Source: Springville Art Museum
J. Henri Moser (1876-1951)
Golden Aspens, Logan Canyon
Oil on board
20 x 16 inches
John Henri Moser immigrated with his family to Utah from Switzerland in 1888 at the age of twelve. He spent ten happy years with a Swiss family in Payson farming and working in the Enterprise Printing establishment. He then moved to Montana and earned his first $1,000 in the Gilt Edge Mine. He used this money to attend the Utah Agricultural College where he studied engineering. Persuaded by a professor to pursue his true vocation in the arts, he traveled to Paris in 1908 to study painting. While in France, he befriended Pablo Picasso and was exposed to a rapid succession of revolutionary painting styles that were not taught in the academies where he studied, including the short-lived "fauvist movement" which used pure brilliant color, applied straight from the paint tubes, in an aggressive, direct manner to create a sense of explosion on the canvas.
Returning to Utah in 1911, Moser turned his back on the academic training he received in Paris and evolved his own style using the fauvist color palate to paint local landscapes that, in the words of art historian James Hazeltine, "produced incandescent canvases of another world where it is always summer, always high noon, all shapes are positive, all hues at full saturation."
Although his bold use of color was at first shocking to a public accustomed to the tonal work of earlier Utah artists, Moser pressed forward with his bold approach and "stayed with the grand tradition of the ages in that an artist should paint with his own heart, as he sees and feels."
Source: Callister, Nebeker & McCullough
J. Henri Moser (1876-1951)
untitled (landscape winter scene)
Oil on board
12 x 14.75 inches
Chiura Obata (1885 - 1975)
Windswept Tree on Mountain Top
ink on paper
15.5 x 20.75 inches
Chiura Obata was born in Sendai, Japan. At age seven, Obata began taking freehand drawing lessons from a local Japanese master artist. He continued his studies until age 15. He then studied at the Bijitsuin Art Institute in Tokyo.
He moved to San Francisco, California in 1903. During the 1906 earthquake and fire he made many sketches of the city in ruins. From 1912-1927, he illustrated for several local Japanese publications. In 1932, he moved across the Bay to Berkeley, and began teaching at the University of California. He remained in that capacity until 1954 (except for a period during 1954, when he was confined to a concentration camp in Utah).
Moved by his love of nature, he specialized in landscapes, portraits, still life images, and wood block prints.
Obata died in Berkeley, California on October 8, 1975.
He exhibited at the Oakland Museum, Crocker Museum, University of Redlands, California Art Club, California Watercolor Society, University of Southern California, Santa Barbara Museum, and the San Diego Fine Art Gallery (now the San Diego Museum of Art).
Source: AskArt.com
Conrad Buff (1886-1975)
Zion, 1931
lithograph
12.50 x 17.25 inches
Born and raised in the conservatism of nineteenth-century Switzerland, Conrad Buff spent a restless youth seeking an outlet for his artistic spirit. His talent would flourish in the majestic landscape and creative individualism of the American West. In the opening decade of the new century, his arrival in California coincided with the flowering of a dynamic movement in American art. Sketching and painting en plein air, Buff was inspired by the grandeur of the High Sierras and the drama of the wind-sculpted desert. In a long and prodigious career he bridged the coloration and brushwork of impressionism with the abstraction and structure of modern art. (Source: The Art and Life of Conrad Buff, by Libby Buff, George Stem, Will South) In the 1920s, a Los Angeles art critic wrote, “Conrad Buff comprehends the enormity of the West. More than that, he adds thereto a discernment of the stylized and conventionalized forms in which the West abound. Not one artist in a hundred grasps the significance of the West’s dynamic forms.”
Selected Collections:
Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery
MOA at Brigham Young University
Laguna Art Museum
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Kiyoshi Saito (1907 - 1997)
Garden Tenryuji Kyoto, 11/80 1950
Sosaku woodblock print
28.2 x 21.5 inches
Born in Fukushima prefecture, Kiyoshi Saito began by designed signs for store fronts in 1924 and developed his work it into a successful business. His love of art inspired him to sell his business and move to Tokyo in 1932. there he studied Western-styled painted at the Hongo Painting Institute. While exhibiting his oils, he begun making woodblock prints (Hanga) by cutting and printing progressively from a single block. By 1937 he focused on only making woodblock prings and in 1938 he produced the Winter in Aizu series depicting the area where he lived as a child. In 1943, he met Onchi, which led to membership in the Nihon Hanga Kyokai (Japanese woodblock association). At the end of the war he exhibited with Un-ichi Hiratsuka and Hide Kawanishe in Tokyo. It was at this exhibition that he sold his first print.
In 1948, he exhibited at the Salon Printemps, and int 1951 received first prize for Steady Gaze at the inaugural Sao Paolo Bienniale. This event brought the modern school of Japanese prints to prominence. Saito was featured in Statler's, modern Japanese Print: An Art Reborn (1956), and visited the U.S. in 1956 under auspices of the State Department and the Asia Foundation. From that year onward, Saito exhibited widely throughout the U.S. and Europe. In 1967 he made a woodblock print of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato for the cover of Time Magazine.
Kiyoshi Saito works are in numerous collections including:
Cincinnati Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, San Francisco; New York Public Library; Art Institute of Chicago; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art; Kanagawa Prefectural Museum.
Conrad Buff (1886 - 1975)
Utah
11 x 15 inches
Oil on Canvas
Signed and dated lower right
In Utah, Buff uses his broad, pointillist-style technique to suggest the contours of the Virgin River coursing through Zion National Park. His dynamic and bold use of alternating colors and broad, energetic brush strokes creates a vivid image of the Three Sisters formation in Zion.
Paul Landacre (1893-1963)
Desert Storm
Woodblock Print
4 x 6 inches
George S. Dibble (1904-1992)
Sand
Watercolor
22.75 x 28.50 inches
Signed lower right
George Dibble was born in Oahu, Hawaii in 1904. Dibble was a painter, teacher, and art critic for The Salt Lake Tribune who, throughout his career, greatly influenced numerous artists and students. He died in 1992.
He took his first art class through the mail from a Cleveland cartoonist and caricaturist. In 1926, he received his teaching certificate from the University of Utah and taught elementary school for two years. Dibble then returned to the University for additional classes in 1928. Later he studied in New York City at the Art Student's League.
In the late 1930s, the Utah State Art Center exhibited works by Dibble and Bill Parkinson in what was probably the first non-objective art show in Salt Lake City. Dibble was a member of the first Modern Artists of Utah and participated in an exhibition and helped write a formal statement to the public, both intended to increase the understanding and acceptance of modern art in Utah. George Dibble's Marine #2 was done in 1938 and exhibits the main features of a cubist painting.
Source: Utah Artists Project (University of Utah)
George Dibble (1904 - 1992)
Bon Voyage, 1939
lithograph
10 x 12 inches
Dibble spent time between New York and Salt Lake City in the late 1930s. He made a number of prints, one of which is Bon Voyage, 1938. While this image reveals none of the artist's interest in Cubism, it does demonstrate a feel for simplified, streamlined shapes and the use of abstract patterns to signify the invisibles of wind and movement.
Source: Depression-Era Printmakers of Utah, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
George S. Dibble (1904 - 1992)
Home Port
Watercolor
22 x 30 inches
signed lower right
unframed
George S. Dibble (1904 - 1992)
Liberty Park Series #1
Watercolor
28.50 x 31 inches
Signed lower right
George S. Dibble, (1904-1992)
WP Oiler
Watercolor
30 x 22 inches
Signed lower right
Frank Anthony Smith (1939 -)
untitled, c. early 1960's
acrylic on canvas
26 x 22 inches
Frank A. Smith was born August 4, 1939 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Smith is a painter of imaginative illusionist works. He lives, works, and teaches in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Smith earned a B.F.A. in 1961 and an M.F.A. in 1964 at the University of Utah, and has been a faculty member at the same institution since 1966. His work is known nationally, and he is generally considered to be on of the finest and most imaginative illusionist artists working in the country today.
Smith's creations can be found in the National Collection of Fine Arts Museum, in Geneva (Switzerland), Paris, New York City, Salt Lake City (Utah Museum Fine Arts, State Collection, etc.), elsewhere.
Source: Biography adapted from Artists of Utah.
Conrad Buff (1886 - 1975)
Deep Canyon, undated
27 x 26 inches
Oil on paper board
Signed lower center
In the 1920s, Los Angeles art critic wrote, “Conrad Buff comprehends the enormity of the West. More than that, he adds thereto a discernment of the stylized and conventionalized forms in which the West abound. Not one artist in a hundred grasps the significance of the West’s dynamic forms.” In Deep Canyon, Buff uses highly stylized forms to represent the enormity of the sheer canyon walls, a hallmark of his painting style. Deep Canyon portrays the vastness of the Grand Canyon with the ribbon of the Colorado River.
LaVerne Krause (1924 - 1987)
Moving Fog on a Morning Sea, 1964
oil on board
48 x 72 inches
Helen "Lee" Deffebach (1928 - 2005)
Odd-Lot System, 1964
27.75 x 32.5 inches
Newsprint, ink on paper
Signed upper center
Odd-lot System echoes national trends in mixed-media works, combining seemingly disparate elements of newsprint and line to create vibrant composition rooted in a consciousness of time.
Throughout her long career, Deffebach experimented with various media including collage, tin, wood, and even found objects such as glass. That her style changed from Abstract Expressionist to Pop artist is unsurprising given her natural interest in innovation. Her ability to use new mediums in her work reflects her ever-growing fascination to experiment and practice in her art.
Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)
Untitled, 1965
18 x 23 inches
Collage
signed lower left
The Volkswagen bug and bus were not only ubiquitous in American marketing but they are now iconic symbols of the 1960s. Deffebach staggers the vehicles to create the illusion of space in the composition but she leaves her own mark by incorporating oil paint. Her swatches of color are limited but serve to give the work balance and focus the viewer’s eye on the vehicles.
Deffebach’s collages coincide with the Pop art work of Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, among others. Springing to life just as the robust economy of the 1950s intersected with the burgeoning consumer culture of the 1960s, Pop art rejected the masculine work of the Abstract Expressionists, and instead included marketing schemes and advertisements. Unlike its process-driven predecessor, Pop art could be made quickly and it shadowed America’s demand for novelty and convenience.
Mary Chenoweth (1918 - 1999)
7 x 7, 1966
acrylic and collage on canvas
30 x 30 inches
Mary Chenoweth was a prolific artist who worked in a variety of media, from painting in oil, collage, pen and ink drawing, printmaking to sculpture. She painted in vibrant colors, stylized shapes and in an abstract expressionist style.
Chenoweth received a B.F.A. from Denver University in 1950, where she studied with Vance Kirkland. In 1953, she received an M.F.A. in printmaking from the University if Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.
That same year she went to Colorado Springs to teach at the Fine Arts Center School, where abstract expressionist painter Emerson Woelffler was the Director. She then joined the Colorado College, where she served as Professor of Art for thirty years.
"The Colorado Springs Fine Art Center has a number of Chenoweth's works in the permanent collection. She carved the doors for the museum's Bemis Art School. In February 2007, the Center will host an exhibition of her work." (Whaley)
Sources:
Colorado College
Lynne Whaley, communication to askART, Oct. 2016
Fritz Scholder (1937 - 2005)
Snake Dancer, 1979
color lithograph, 81/150
30 x 22 inches
Born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, Fritz Scholder became a prolific painter, sculptor, lithographer, teacher, mentor and bookmaker of Native American art in Arizona. Scholder's paternal grandmother was a member of the Luiseño tribe of Mission Native American. He studied with Wayne Thiebaud at Sacramento College in California. He earned an MFA Degree from the University of Arizona.
In his work, he frequently showed the harsh, realistic side of Native Americans' lives and deaths, but some of his depictions are humorous such as Indians on horseback carrying umbrellas. His brush-work is generally swift, and the tone often sombre and surreal. A major influence on his work was the contemporary British artist, Francis Bacon, from whom Scholder adapted ironic distortions into his canvases.
Scholder says "...it is my intention not only to set up graphically a new visual experience for the viewer, but also to make a statement in regard to the society and land in which we, the descendants of the American Indian, live. I am well aware that my paintings are not literal, for to me some ideas require unique statements. I try to capture not only the physical, but the inner and even spiritual."
Selected Collections:
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Hirschhorn Museum of Fine Arts, Washington,D.C.
National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institute
Boston Fine Arts Museum
Source: AskArt Archives
Frank Anthony (Tony) Smith (1939 - )
Scarecrow, 1983
43 x 55 inches
acrylic on canvas
One art curator wrote that, "Tony Smith’s paintings are works in motion…abundant in visual and psychological intrigue…imbued with magic, possibility, and surprise.” A professor at the U of U from 1966 - 2001, uses illusionism, light, and color to create magical moments. Smith remarked that, “What is important to me is magic, literal magic, a sense that the world is changeable, surprising, that it’s more than you think."
Russell Chatham (1939 - )
Missouri Headwaters, February, 1985
lithograph
34 x 45 inches
This stunning work demonstrates why Russell Chatham is considered one of the art world’s leading lithographers. One of the scenes in his Headwaters of the Missouri series, it exemplifies Chatham’s fascination with the spiritual qualities of spiritual qualities of landscape as captured by changing seasons and light.
Wulf Barsch (1943 - )
untitled, 1986
lithograph
22 x 20 inches
Frank Anthony Smith (1939 -)
Solo Stick, 1986
lithograph
20 x 22 inches
Nel Ivancich (1941 – 2014)
Placido,
29 x 21 inches
mixed media on paper
“Much of my work refers to the spare and wild terrain surrounding my home next to the Santa Rosa National Monument in Southern California’s high desert. Whether it is the sense of being enveloped within the dramatic day and night skies or feeling attuned to the slow growing patterns of desert fauna, living close to Nature provides ongoing inspiration. My intention is to spotlight in the abstract what appear to be brief intervals within natural and human-made accumulations over time.”
Biography:
Nel Ivancich was born in Salt Lake City in 1941. She was a painter of color field abstractions. Don Olsen, a foremost Utah painter, was her instructor at Jordan High School. Ivancich said “I appreciated his enthusism for art and his ability to encourage confidence in his students.” She studied at Chouinard Institute of Art in Los Angeles. She earned her BFA in 1985, and her MFA in 1987 from the University of Utah. Ivancich said about her education “Professors Tony Smith, Sam Wilson, Bob Kleinschmidt and Doug Snow provided a quality mix of instruction, humor and example during a particularly energetic time in the Art Department, when Dr. Robert “Bob“ Olpin presided as Dean.” She was life-long friends with Cathy Pardike, Lee Deffebach, Susan Slade and Carolyn Coalson. She said they “shared my enthusiasm for abstract art and artists and, even though three of us have since left Utah, we maintain contact and friendship.”
Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)
Stripe Series, 1980
acrylic on canvas
42 x 52 inches
signed and dated bottom right
In 1982, Deffebach used acrylic to create bold stripes of color. This relatively new, plastic based medium allowed artists to explore its expansive technical possibilities and wider range of hues. Paint over unprimed canvas dramatized the painting’s materiality.
V. Douglas Snow (1927 - 2009)
Cockscomb View, 1994
Oil on canvas
36 x 48 inches
Doug Snow (1927 - 2009)
untitled
acrylic and collage
10 x 15 inches
Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)
Thoughts of Cario #2, 1999
acrylic on canvas
30 x 24 inches
A 1960 review in The Village Voice praised the works in Lee Deffebach's one-woman show, saying that "The best thing happening on 10th Street now is Lee Deffebach's work at Camino. The colors are lyric, jazzy, loud. It's a deep breath of fresth air after the conscious naivete, the Oh-shucks earnestness filling most of the galleries." Deffebach, trained at the University of Utah, joined Alice Neel, Elaine deKooning, and others in the vibrant 10th Street gallery community that thrived in the late 1950s and early 60s.
Doug Snow (1927 - 2009)
Night Bird or Death of Braque
oil on canvas
36 x 42 inches
By the 1970s, Doug Snow observed that he viewed his paintings as “essentially a matter of combustible things happening within a relative calm…So things get very dense, very packed, very full, almost explosive in certain sections of the painting…”
This undated painting hearkens back to Snow’s training in abstract expressionist philosophy and technique, in which the paint could “drip, spread, and explode across a canvas and refer to nothing anyone could recognize as some thing in the world, but rather reinforce the idea of the painting as a painting first.” (Will South)
Perhaps Snow is responding more to the limitless night sky of the desert than to the ground beneath his feet. We’re pulled into an inexplicable yet alluring vortex of blue and black, just as we are on a moonless night on a remote plateau.
Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)
The Lion's Gate, 2003
acrylic on canvas
60 x 60 inches
More than a decade after her death, Lee Deffebach (1928 – 2005) remains one of the most highly regarded Utah painters, best known for her large color abstractions which grew out of the Abstract Expressionist movement.
A 1949 graduate of the University of Utah, she studied at the Art Students League, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Rome in 1954-55. Deffebach returned to the University of Utah and earned a master's degree in painting in 1989.
Her paintings and other works are included in private, corporate, and public collections in Utah and the United States, and have been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions.
Submitted by Allen Dodworth, Fine Art Appraiser and Art Historian
