Paul Lloyd Ellingson was born in 1938 in Menomonie, Wisconsin. This Salt Lake City master of watercolor had been one of the most interesting people thinking and working in Utah. He died in 2005.

Ellingson graduated in 1965 from the University of Utah with a B.F.A., in architecture and music, and an M.F.A., in painting in 1970. Ellingson was also an architectural theorist whose concept of the "continumorph" is fascinating and perhaps a landmark in the evolution of environmental-design thinking.

Paul Ellingson as artist maintained his position as an admirable painter of watercolors that are refreshingly economic as a set of low-key suggestion of the landscape, and as an effective teacher of the same, sometimes at the Salt Lake Art Center and sometimes at the University of Utah.

Biography adapted from Artists of Utah.

Email Laura Ellingson for more information on the artist

Paul Lloyd Ellingson (1938-2005), was originally from Menomonie, Wisconsin. This Salt Lake City master of watercolor had been one of the most interesting people thinking and working in Utah. A graduate of the University of Utah (B.F.A., architecture and music, 1965; M.F.A., painting, 1970). Ellingson became a fine jazz pianist and music company executive, an architectural theorist whose concept of the "continumorph" is fascinating and perhaps a landmark in the evolution of environmental-design thinking, and a painter who understands the watercolor medium better than most of his colleagues do. His dream had been of an ideal natural world made up of "continumorphs ... morphologically related" via symbiosis. Yet, while the details for such a new landscape and architecture have tended to remain vague in the awareness of most of those to whom they have been presented, Paul Ellingson as artist maintained his position as an admirable painter of watercolors that are refreshingly economic as a set of low-key suggestion of the landscape, and as an effective teacher of the same, sometimes at the Salt Lake Art Center and sometimes at the University of Utah.

Biography courtesy Artists of Utah.

Email Laura Ellingson for more information on the artist

Newspaper Articles

"Art Guild Tea Will Feature Artists in Action." The Deseret News, September 13, 1977.

"Best Bets For the Week Ahead." The Salt Lake Tribune, January 17, 1993.

"Pianist Next at Art Center." The Salt Lake Tribune, October 30, 1977.

"Piano Concert's Rough-Hewn." The Salt Lake Tribune, November 3, 1977.

"September's Bounty Brings Jazz Galore to Downtown S.L." The Salt Lake Tribune, September 16, 1979.

"The Art Scene - Landscape Painting Exhibition Marks Another First in Utah." The Salt Lake Tribune, August 22, 1976.

"The Art Scene - Sam Wilson's Rewarding Works Entertain at Canyon Gallery." The Salt Lake Tribune, February 27, 1983.

"The Art Scene - Straight From the Brush Comments." The Salt Lake Tribune, July 17, 1977.

"The Art Scene - Utah's Art Scene: Statewide Competition." The Salt Lake Tribune, July 6, 1975.

"The Art Scene - Watercolorists Open '76 Show." The Salt Lake Tribune, June 20, 1976.

"The Art Scene - Weaving Has Esthetic Qualities, Too." The Salt Lake Tribune, March 23, 1975.

"The Art Scene - Which Gallery Has the Most Viewing Hours?" The Salt Lake Tribune, February 13, 1977.

"The Art Scene- Faculty Art on Display." The Salt Lake Tribune, September 7, 1975.

"The Art Scene- S.L. Library Brimming With Art." The Salt Lake Tribune, October 20, 1974.

"The Art Scene -There's Good Sculpture in Bronze." The Salt Lake Tribune, December 16, 1979.

"Watercolors Recall U. History." The Salt Lake Tribune, November 14, 1976.

Books

Ellingson, Paul. "Solomon and the Lilies of the Field." Masters thesis, University of Utah, 1970.

Olpin, Robert S. Dictionary of Utah Art. Salt Lake City, UT: Salt Lake Art Center, l980.

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

Periodical

Aikin, Jim. "Horizontal, Vertical, & Digital." Keyboard, August 1984.