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WILLIAM J. PARKINSON

1899 - 1993

Biographyof Salt Lake City and Hyrum, Utah, and a "graduate of the 'Depression' school," began his formal art education as a student of A.B. Wright (q.v.) in 1924. But he was, in the final analysis, mainly "self-taught" from before and after that time. One of the few Utah artists to create what can be termed "surrealist" works, Parkinson finally became the maker of a series of rather tight portrait paintings while pursuing the career of a self-employed artist and decorator in Salt Lake City from the late 1940s on. A brief listing of some of the many positions Parkinson held from his early twenties onward is symbolic of the hard struggle of the independent artist during the early-to-middle years of this century: "Artist, Civilian Conservation Cops, 1934; art teacher, Granite High School, Salt Lake City, 1935; artist and art teacher, WPA, 1942; engineering aid, Department of Agriculture, Salt Lake City 1943; laborer, Benington Arms, Salt Lake City, 1945; decorator with Paul Smith, Salt Lake City, 1946 . . ." Yet, finally, the accrued signs of a life of dedicated work in the arts were there with an early mural for McKinley School; out-of-state showing at the Oakland Art Museum and Hyde Park, New York (with work executed for the "Index of American Design"), and elsewhere; a one-man show at the Salt Lake Public Library; top awards from the Utah State Fair and the Institute of Fine Arts; and representation in various state, county, city, school, and privately owned collections in Utah. (b. February 14; d. February 1)

Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. ARTISTS OF UTAH. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999: 208.

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