Bringing Art to the Saints
By Paige Crosland, BYU Meridian Correspondent

Upon the Latter-day Saints’ settling in the uninhabited valley of modern-day Salt Lake City in the late 1840’s, there was an almost tangible need for artistic expression and instruction. Within a few decades, this need was met by the arrival of George M. Ottinger, a pioneer not only in a physical sense, but a pioneer of unconquerable spirit, of will and heart, infused with a passion for his first love — art.


At age nine, Ottinger considered his box of pencils and watercolor set his most prized possessions. [i] These were the things he was sure not to forget when packing his bags, and heading east from Pennsylvania after his family was reduced to poverty in 1842, and he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in New York.

As a growing boy in the Empire State, his afternoons were spent painting scenes of rivers and barns rather than playing cowboys and Indians with the other boys his age (Olpin 173). Even as a young man, he always esteemed painting as his first love. His family, however, considered it to be a juvenile hobby and as he reached the age of adulthood, Ottinger was pressured to pursue a medical career.

But life took him far and away from medicine and onto a journey around the world, brush in hand (Olpin 174).

After the death of his uncle and later his aunt in 1846, Ottinger’s found himself homeless at age 17. His adventuresome, energetic, and pioneer spirit lead him to the conclusion carefully detailed in the pages of his prolific journal that, “If I cannot be an artist, I’ll be a sailor” (Olpin 174). And he set off on a three-year adventure circumnavigating the world while jumping from ship to barge.

During his time at sea, he fell in love with maritime themes, and this visual motif is prevalent in work spanning his entire life. But Ottinger grew tired of his swashbuckling life at sea, so in early 1853 he headed back to land to live with his mother in his childhood state of Pennsylvania.

Ottinger’s family was overjoyed to see the young adventurer alive — for he had, in his own words, “neglected to tell them I was going to sea” (Olpin 174). With nothing to occupy his time, his hand soon twitched for a brush and canvas, and soon he set to work saving to study art seriously. After getting a job at a sugar refinery and bringing in a meager income for a number of months, he was soon able to supplement his first formal education in art. Robert Weir, often associated with the “Hudson River School,” was his first instructor (Swanson, Olpin, Poulton, Rogers 8).

While away at school, Ottinger’s mother joined the LDS Church and soon influenced him to do the same. He became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the end of the 1850’s, and by 1861, at 28-years-of age, he found himself accompanying his mother westward to Zion (Olpin 175).

Ottinger, however, did not want to contain his tireless spirit. Having heard of the California gold rush, his plan was to continue the trek west after settling his mother in the Salt Lake Valley, and strike his fortune. Upon arrival, Ottinger found an artistically starving population of saints, and his heart begged him to stay and foster the arts. Soon he was hired on to paint scenery for the Salt Lake Theatre (Olpin 175). This service launched a lifetime of commitment and enthusiasm for art in the lovely Deseret.

Just a year after Ottinger’s arrival, another artist, Dan Weggeland, came onto the scene and the two became lifelong friends and partners in building an artistic future for the Saints in Utah. 1863 marked Ottinger’s establishment of the Deseret Academy of Fine Arts. He was named the president, and Weggeland a member of the board, of the short-lived, ten-month academy (Swanson, Olpin, Seifrit 18).

Although Ottinger was easily disheartened and decidedly so after the dwindling of his newly established academy, the school was the first of its kind in the West and it laid the groundwork for further progress in the arts.

He later established the “Deseret Art Union” and helped to organize the “Salt Lake Art Association.” Along with young artist Alice Merrill Horne, the “Alice Art Collection” was established. This lead to a legislative act requiring the State of Utah to “hold an exhibit in a different city … every two years” where the work would be adjudicated and some purchased for an on-going, people-owned collection of art housed in the Utah State Capitol Building. This effort ultimately resulted in the creation of the Utah Art Institute (Olpin 126, 177)

Ottinger continued to paint prolifically, varying subject matter from maritime, landscape, portrait, Aztec themes, and especially sights from his journey West nearly a decade earlier (Tullidge 219). Though winning many prizes for his work, Ottinger had little success selling his paintings and often scribbled envious entries into his journals about the attitudes of the locals concerning his work. In his opinion they, “as a general thing like pictures and admire them but they have no money to spend for them, unless some stranger like Mr. Perry [an economically successful painter from back East] comes into the Valley.” (Olpin 176).

Ottinger’s real strengths, however, were in his ability to teach and engender his passion for the arts in those around him.  He began by teaching privately, inspiring countless students and always encouraging them to study abroad after his instruction. Ottinger has been described as one of the most colorful characters of the early Salt Lake Valley (Swanson, Olpin, Seifrit 19) and was popular among his students. Eventually in the 1880’s he joined the University of Deseret (now University of Utah) faculty in the Art Department. He, along with Weggeland, became two the most prominent professors in the department. Ottinger detailed:

During his time at the university, Ottinger set to work instigating a gallery that would serve not only as a place to display works of art, but also to represent a visual history of Utah. This endeavor, however, was put on hold for many years due to the reorganization of the university.ⁱ

But Ottinger was undeterred and continued to paint a visual history of Utah. Pieces such as The Mormon Battalion at Gila Arizona, The Immigrant Train, Above Camp Douglas, Immigrant Train at the City of the Rocks, Idaho, and The Last Ride of the Pony have helped historians place Utah history in a visual context.

It was written, “We were much gratified yesterday with a glance at two pictures recently painted by Mr. Ottinger of this city — the Pony Express, the other; the Mail Stage. Exhibiting in both the onward march of the luxuries of civilization westward” (Swanson, Olpin, Seifrit 19).

Ottinger’s contributions in the arts, civics, and church are prolific. He lived to serve and teach, to infuse his passion into others and help establish the groundwork for the rich artistic culture we now enjoy in the Latter-day Saint culture. I am the Great-great-great Granddaughter of George Ottinger and am an art major at Brigham Young University. I, for one, am grateful for his sacrifice, for his perseverance, and his diligence, in making it possible for me to pursue what I love most — art.

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