John Elliott Tullidge was born in Weymouth, England in 1838. He was a landscape painter of the Rocky Mountain School, ornamental painter, and mural painter. He died in Salt Lake City in 1899.

Because Tullidge displayed artistic talent early, he was apprenticed to an English decorative painter. He converted to The Church of Jesus Christ and immigrated to Utah in 1863. Along with George Ottinger, and Dan Weggeland, Tullidge helped found the short-lived Deseret Academy of Fine Arts in 1863.

By the late 1860s Tullidge had gained a good reputation as an ornamental painter. He also painted murals for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Salt Lake City Temple. Minnie Lake(1890) is featured in the Springville Museum of Art permanent collection.

Biography adapted from Artists of Utah.

Tullidge, John Elliott (1836-1899), A native of Weymouth, England, was a pioneer Utah painter whose work attracted an important Denver patron as well as a members of the powerful Walker family in Salt Lake City. Even though he had only a brief apprenticeship in his teens with an English decorative painter (a factor preventing further homeland "formal art study except for meager training at Milready"), Tullidge was able to develop into a landscape painter in America, using a calm but nicely brushy luminism in his works not unlike effects seen in the pictures of some secondary figures associated with this country's Hudson River School. Then, like Dan Weggeland (q.v.), he eventually capped his studio career by painting in various LDS temples (St. George, Logan, and Manti). Edward W. Tullidge, a brother of John Tullidge, was the most prominent nineteenth-century writer on Utah art and one of several leaders of the Godbeite movement in dissent from Mormonism beginning in the 1860s. (b. April 17)

Biography courtesy of Artists of Utah.

Newspaper Article

"Utah Landscapes Grace Springville Gallery." The Deseret News, November 12, 1989.

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.

Gerdts, William H. Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting, 1710-1920. New York, NY: Abbeville Press, 1990.

Haseltine, James L. 100 Years of Utah Painting: Selected Works from the 1840s to the 1940s. UT: Salt Lake Art Center, 1965.

Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. Artists of Utah. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith, 1999.

Reinhardt, Lisa. Davenport's Art Reference & Price Guide 2001/2002. Phoenix, AZ: Gordon's Art Reference, 2000.

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 Art. Layton, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1991.

Swanson, Vern G., Robert S. Olpin, and William C. Seifrit. Utah Painting and Sculpture. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1991.

Miscellaneous

Ask Art Academic. "John Elliott Tullidge." http://www.askart.com/askart/artist.aspx?artist=9967 (accessed June 3, 2008).