MINERVA TEICHERT
Entered 4/10/08 by Abigail Smith, Senior in Art History & Curatorial Studies, Museum Intern, Winter 2008.
"Minerva Bernetta Kohlhepp [1888-1976], a descendant of Mormon Pioneers, was one of a small, but influential, group of Western women trained in the arts before World War I. Her maternal line fostered women who were strong-minded and independent, traits evident in Minerva's own life . . .
"She discovered her talent for art at an early age as she sketched life on her family's Idaho homestead and in the surrounding area. The isolated places in which she lived limited her early formal education. However, her father read history and literary classics aloud to his children and encouraged their lively imaginations . . .
"Minerva loved her family and her heart also went out to the unfortunate ones around her because she had seen poverty in her own family. She gave away many paintings so that people might have a touch of the beautiful in their lives; thus art became an important way for her to give service . . .
"Obtaining schooling was a struggle from beginning to end for [Minerva]. 'Home' was generally a homestead on Indian Warm Springs outside of American Falls, Idaho. When her parents' store burned and their other business ventures in town failed, the family returned to the homestead for economic and emotional security, but there was no nearby school. She finished eighth grade in North Ogden while living with her Grandmother Hickman. She did it by effectively challenging several classes in a one-year period .
"In 1902, when [Minerva] was fourteen, she was hired as a nursemaid by a wealthy cattleman to go with his family to San Francisco. Here she saw great art for the first time at the Mark Hopkins School of Art . . . Upon her return to Idaho, she entered Pocatello High School. As she was away from home at this time, she worked for her board and room, and sometimes assumed responsibility for younger siblings. When [Minerva] boarded at the home of Isabel Ballantyne West, a practicing artist, West recognized her potential and encouraged Minerva to magnify her art talent.
"After graduation, Minerva Kohlhepp . . . taught for several years in various one-room rural schools for a term or two each . . . At seventeen [Minerva] was teaching to help support her father on his Latter-day Saint Church mission to Germany and Switzerland. After his return she began saving for her lifelong dream: to obtain professional training at a noted art school in the East in preparation for an art career . . .
"From 1908 to 1912, [Minerva] studied at the Chicago Art Institute under an internationally acclaimed art faculty . . . [She] accomplished her goal through great discipline and personal sacrifice . . . From Chicago, Minerva went to New York City to enroll in the Art Students League . . . At the Art Students League, [her] style progressed rapidly, especially under Robert Henri who guided her development as a portrait painter and saw in her a gift possessed by very few. By 1917, with abundant talent and superb training, she returned to the West and was ready to begin her career . . .
"Back in Pocatello, Minerva set up a portrait studio in the home of her friend and colleague, Dr. Minnie Howard, a medical doctor and Idaho Arts Chairman. At that time Minerva was an active public speaker, and the Idaho State Legislature was among her audiences . . . [Her] life then suddenly took a new direction. Without announcing their intentions, she and . . . Herman Adolph Teichert, were married on 15 September 1917, just prior to his induction into the army for duty in France . . . Herman returned from France . . . in debt . . . Minerva's art was temporarily put aside. They both felt that her willing hands in the hay field were her most valuable assets at that time . . .
"Gradually, during the ten years spent on the Snake River Bottoms, Minerva began to paint again--portraits of cowboys, family, and friends, and stories she heard from the natives about settlers and Indians. Two books she had written about Fort Hall and the Bottoms were also published . . .
"Throughout her life, [Minerva] held a deep-seated objective: be the very best you can be. One of her heartfelt desires was to teach her skills to others. She envisioned art schools in the West like those in the East. She maintained that through great art Mormondom had a story to tell the world:
"We shall develop an art as great as the Egyptians . . .Theirs is the art of a people, magnificent after millenniums. So should our art, rich in story and backed by a great faith, be so glorious that future generations shall say, 'This is the art of a great race.' So may it be with ours."
From: Eastwood, Laurie Teichert. RICH IN STORY, GREAT IN FAITH: THE ART OF MINERVA KOHLHEPP TEICHERT. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1988.
_____________________________________________________________________
Following is an excerpt from Minerva's own autobiographical life sketch, written in 1947:
"I married my cowboy sweetheart, which was right. My first son was born while my husband was serving in France. I painted stage scenery to pay for his birth. I painted what I loved for the Pocatello Tabernacle "Not Alone", and got thirty-eight dollars for it. . . .For the next ten years I helped in the hay fields. My first three little boys grew up beside a haystack. . . .When the American Falls Dam went in I was the last white woman out of the Snake River Bottoms. . . .I spent most of the mornings for the next fifteen years in the milk house. The children must be educated, etc. I painted after they were tucked into bed at night. I must paint. It's a disease." (Minerva Teichert, handwritten manuscript, 1947, research files, Museum of Church History and Art.)