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NEIL WESLEY HADLOCK

born 1944

CountryHighland, Utah, USA

BiographyA sculptor who came into his own in the eighties is W. Neil Hadlock. He began casting bronzeworks under a lean-to next to his house. He is a descended from two generations of blacksmiths and became a founding member of the North American Mountain Artists Cooperative. Since then, his attention has been divided between his art and his foundry, Wasatch Bronzeworks in Lehi. This company now employs 80 people and is one of the best-known foundries in the West. Hadlock's foundry produces more than 1,000 pieces every year and has more than 200 clients nationwide. "We have pieces from our foundry in virtually every state in the Union," said production manger Roger Hunt. Many of the West's famous sculptors have their work cast at Wasatch Bronzewroks, including Grant Speed, Dennis Smith, and Stanley Wanlass. Karl Momen, the Swedish artist who designed the Tree of Utah (the giant sculpture located about 20 miles west of Wendover on I-80), is another famous client of Wasatch Bronzeworks. Most church building signs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are produced at Wasatch Bronzeworks. The statues found in front of the American Savings and Loan offices are produced at Hadlock's foundry. Perhaps the most famous bronze produced at Wasatch Bronzeworks is the Vietnam Memorial of the State Capitol in Salt Lake. A devotee of noted sculptors Anthony Caro, Ellsworth Kelly, and Eduardo Chillida, Hadlock combines elements of their work with his own sense of form, materials, and surface to form a formidable gestalt. His "Effron" (1983, SMA, plate 105) is an outsized corten steel hard-edge minimalist piece that commands the grove of trees in its setting at the Springville Museum of art, like an altar.
The members of the North American Mountain Artists Cooperative are all interested in Mormon art and viewed their cooperative in utopian terms. As Frank Riggs put it, "If Mormon art ever develops anywhere, there's as good a chance as any it will develop here." Their original goal was to build an artists' association, art center, and art school. This was a lofty ambition in a culture in which artists seldom worked closely together.
Not only a sculptor and painter, Hadlock is also an instructor at Brigham Young University.

Information found in the "Miscellaneous H" artist constituent binder in the Print Study Room. Collected from various sources such as: "Utah Painting and Sculpture 1997," and "Deseret News."
Entered by: Michael Clayton, Print Study Room Staff, 1/31/06

Hadlock, (Wesley) Neil (1944-). This fine and extremely versatile Highland, Utah, sculptor and printmaker was born in St. Anthony, Idaho. He is now a resident of Highland and the former owner and operator of the Wasatch Bronzeworks in nearby Lehi, Utah. The creator of eloquent designs wiht the use of a vast array of materials, Hadlock has studied at Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, and Brigham Young University (M.F.A., 1971). This artist has exhibited his modernist sculpture throughout the West and is an art faculty member at BYU. (b. March 7)

Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. ARTISTS OF UTAH. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999: 121.

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