GARY ERNEST SMITH

Raised on a ranch near Baker, Oregon, and converted to the LDS Church in 1966, this resident of Highland, Utah, became in the 1970s perhaps the most interesting artist specifically concerned with Mormon themes. The holder of a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from Brigham Young University, Smith is a nationally recognized painter of enigmatic depictions of rural Americana that arrest many viewers of his work with a haunting sense of national memory distilled. Gary smith essentially works upon the basis of themes reinterpreted away from previous Mormon visual prototypes. Rather than emphasizing the sweeter forms of idealization, Smith instead moves toward spatial and coloristic solutions tied to his understanding of Mormon gospel. He is cofounder of Alpine's North Mountain Artists Cooperative and has taught at BYU as a special instructor. An award-winning creator of murals in Salt Lake city and Murray, Utah; some of his creativity of the mid-1970s was in connection with the special effects for the film "Brigham Young" in Hollywood, California; and some of his other work has been in a nationally syndicated newspaper cartoon strip. His recent "field" landscape series has propelled the artist to a position as one of the major American landscape painters. Recently, Don Hagerty published a biography on this fine Utah artist. (b. June 29)

Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. ARTISTS OF UTAH. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999: 240.