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Everett C. Thorpe
Everett Clark "Ev" Thorpe was born in 1907 in Providence, Utah. He was an accomplished artist and teacher whose artistic experimentation ranged from portraits to murals to expressionism. He died in Logan, Utah in 1983.
In 1942, Thorpe attended the Los Angeles County Art Institute, later he transferred to Utah State College where he earned a bachelors' degree in 1942, and an MFA in 1951. In Utah, he studied under LeConte Stewart and Calvin Fletcher.
Thorpe began his career in figurative art as a sports illustrator for two local newspapers, The Salt Lake Tribune and The Deseret News. Thorpe's work was exhibited at the Utah Art Center (1938-45) and at the Utah State Institute of Fine Arts in 1946 where he won a prize. Snow Banks (1956) is an example of his work.
Biography adapted from Artists of Utah.
The faculty of Utah State Agricultural College produced a large group of effective art teachers through the 1920s, '30s, '40s and beyond, who were students of either Calvin Fletcher or Harry Reynolds or both. Expressionist painter Thorpe was singularly effective product of their work and a future colleague as well. Originally from tiny Providence, Utah, Thorpe began his figurative art as sports artist for both Desert News and The Salt Lake Tribune. Studying not only at Utah State and eventually the University of Utah, he numbered among his teachers a large and varied array of talents extending finally to the noted abstract-expressionist Hans Hofmann. Thorpe was a student at Los Angeles Country Art Institute, Syracuse University, and the Hans Hofmann School of Art at Provincetown, Massachusetts, through a long career of teaching and extended experimentation. His work ranged from illustration through portraiture; to multiple figurative mural projects, often in style similar to that of Thomas Hart Benton; and finally to an artistic maturity centered upon a nonobjective "Hofmannesque" set of goals. Beginning at U.S.U. in 1934 as a student instructor, this artist's career spanned over forty years there and carried forward the liberalized Fletcher/Reynolds tradition there into a later period.
Biography courtesy Artists of Utah.
Newspaper Article
"Art of The Depression: Colorful Works That Reflect Hope." The Deseret News, September 25, 1988.
Books
Dawdy, Doris. Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary. Chicago, IL: Sage Books, 1990.
Dunbier, Lonnie Pierson, ed. The Artists Bluebook: 29,000 North American Artists. Scottsdale, AZ: AskART.com, 2003.
Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999.
Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who in American Art: Compiled from the Original Thirty-four Volumes of American Art Annual--Who's Who in Art, Biographies of American Artists Active from 1898-1947. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.
Haseltine, James L. 100 Years of Utah Painting: Selected Works from the 1840s to the 1940s. Salt Lake City, UT: Salt Lake Arts Center, 1965.
Swanson, Vern G., Robert S. Olpin, and William C. Seifrit. Utah Art. Layton, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1991.
Reinhardt, Lisa. Davenport's Art Reference & Price Guide 2001/2002. Phoenix, AZ: Gordon's Art Reference, 2000.
Olpin, Robert, S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. Artists of Utah. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999.
Samuels, Peggy and Harold Samuels. The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.
Springville Museum of Art. Permanent Collection Catalog. Springville, UT: Springville Museum of Art, 1972.
Swanson, Vern G., Robert S. Olpin, Donna Poulton, and Janie Rogers. 150 Years Survey of Utah Art, Utah Artists. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2001
Swanson, Vern G, Robert S. Olpin, and William C. Seifrit. Utah Painting and Sculpture. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1991
Thorpe, Everett Clark. "A Mural for the Logan Tabernacle." M.F.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1954.