Mahonri Young

Early years

Mahonri Mackintosh Young was born on August 9, 1877, in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. He was the oldest child of Mahonri Moriancumer Young, owner of Deseret Woolen Mill which he had inherited from his father Brigham Young, and Agnes Mackintosh. Young enjoyed the time he spent living in rural Utah at the factory; he considered this his "golden age" in Utah. Young was given the name of his father, named after the character Mahonri Moriancumer from the Book of Mormon, widely known as the "Brother of Jared". Moriancumer was omitted due to its peculiarity and was, instead, replaced by Mackintosh, his mother's maiden name. His grandfather, Brigham Young, was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), governor of Utah territory in 1851, and director of the Mormon pioneers to Utah. Mahonri Mackintosh was likely the last grandchild born before the death of Brigham Young on August 29 and the last to receive a blessing from him.

Young's mother came from a polygamist marriage in the Midwestern United States. Though she did not meet her father, Daniel Mackintosh until she was older than one, he died when she was three years old and her mother raised her alone. Young's parents had attended the University of Deseret (now University of Utah) together. They married in October 1876 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. After their marriage, Agnes's mother Ellen moved into their home. Young's twin brothers, Winfield Scott (Winnie) and Waldemar (Wally) were born on July 1, 1880; they grew to be successful, a newspaperman and a screenwriter respectively. While ill with appendicitis, his father introduced Young to sculpture by carving objects for him out of wood. For his safety, his father gave him clay to model animals, sparking his interest in art at a young age. Young's father died when he was about seven years old. His father's death provided Young with the motivation to become a successful sculptor. His mother never remarried but was forced to sell the factory for less than half its worth due to financial concerns. Despite this, Agnes was able to provide for the living expenses of her family.

His family moved into a small house in Salt Lake City where Young began school. At eleven years old, his mother bought him a woodcarving kit from which he carved a four-inch bas relief of Julius Caesar from a fence post. After seeing the piece, a book salesman called him a "genius", leading his family to call him "the genius". Due to mediocre grades and always feeling behind his classmates, Young quit school after eighth grade. He spent time reading and studying about art, making friends with other young, aspiring artists. His childhood friends included John Held Jr. and Lee Greene Richards. He created his first sculpture when he was thirteen. At a young age, Young found formal education to be a waste of time. Young said that the only thing he learned that was of any value to him was that he should look at the point where a line would end rather than the point of the pencil. However, despite his disinterest in formal education, he read avidly with favorite authors being Ralph Waldo Emerson and Montaigne. Early influences from the Mormon families around him led him to be disinterested in maintaining LDS Church activity. Examples of these influences included abuse of the law of plural marriage and excessive piety among church members.

Salt Lake City and New York education

Rather than attend ninth grade, Young chose to pursue an artistic education under local artist James Taylor Harwood, John Hafen, and Edwin Evans. He had initially applied to the University of Utah, but his application was denied because he had not graduated high school. Instead, Young worked in a curio shop and a stationery shop to make money for lessons with Harwood. However, he was delayed in attending lessons due to a necessary appendectomy. Harwood was unimpressed by Young, believing that he was a lazy artist and did not work hard. Young's philosophy, however, was that there is no virtue in working hard, but rather thinking hard. Furthermore, Young liked to quickly sketch an observation which he would later turn into a drawing, but being a traditionalist, Harwood viewed this technique as cheating and an "artistic crime". Although Young had not yet sculpted in class, one day, Young and a classmate sculpted the mask of Laocoön with details from the David and Laughing Faun. Young was not trained in sculpture and had not sculpted since he was five years old. Despite his lack of experience, his instructors praised his sculptures and his natural talent. However, he would not sculpt again until he studied in Paris. Young saved money earned as a Salt Lake Tribune portrait artist, but took his subsequent demotion to an engraver as a blow to his ego.

Using the money he saved, he attended the Art Students League of New York between 1899 and 1901. In New York, Young was fascinated by the Industrial Revolution and decided that he would make art to reflect the themes of the Industrial Revolution. At the Art Students League, Young took classes with George Bridgeman and Kenyon Cox. He began using realist techniques; he would look at artistic models quickly and then attempt to draw his or her memorized features. Although Young disliked Bridgeman as an instructor, Young maintained a spot as second in the class. In contrast, Young greatly admired Cox as an instructor. During his time in New York, he suffered from insomnia, which he attempted to remedy by reading Shakespeare and magazines. Young lived on a tight budget and spent most of his time studying or attending art exhibits. After running out of money, Young had to return to Salt Lake City after eight months instead of his intended nine.

Paris education

In Salt Lake City, Young worked for the Salt Lake Herald as an engraver and did some drawings for Deseret News. Even though he contracted the Spanish flu, Young became manager of the photoengraving shop for the Herald and saved enough money to travel to Paris, France, in 1901 to study at the Académie Julian. Young received extra money to study from his mother who had arranged for a settlement of a part of Brigham Young's estate as well as donations from family and members of the LDS Church.

He studied until 1905, where he studied with Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Antoine Injalbert. Unimpressed by the traditional styles taught in Paris, Young did not believe he learned anything at the Académie in France until 1903, when he was able to work more independently and develop his realistic style. He started studying painting and after achieving personal goals painting and after more artistic education from a trip to Italy, he returned to studying sculpture and etching in 1903. Young indicated that one must learn to be thick skinned in class to be able to withstand the criticism of both professors and other students. Most of his instruction in anatomy came from independent study of books. He found that he could not stomach anatomy classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, not because of cadavers, because he had not yet made it to that point in the lectures, but because of the overwhelming stench of un-showered students and sweat which gave him unbearable headaches.

Young's most important etching in Paris was The Forge Rue St. Jacque. It was exhibited in 1903, bringing public attention to Young's etchings. His first original sculptures, The Shoveler and The Man Tired were completed in 1903. Young did not agree with the use of models in his sculpting, because he believed it took away from the naturalness of the piece. For his sculptures, he found that sketches and observation over time made for more natural results and a better depiction of motion. He nervously sent Man Tired and The Shoveler to the American Art Association show in 1903 and achieved great success. His sculptures were featured in the Paris Herald in an article about the American Art Association show. His sculptures were sent to the New Salon in Paris for liberal art, were placed in the main gallery, and received critical acclaim. He spent all of his time looking at art in exhibitions or sketching on the street which garnered him criticism from his classmates for being lazy. Young, however, felt that he could learn more by observing rather than by working and studying in the studio.

Career

Mahonri Young returned to Utah in 1905, needing to find a way to make a living. Due to his lack of success and financial troubles, Young considered years 1905 to 1910 his "five years of exile". His first commission was a butter sculpture for Frost Creamery for the Utah State Fair called The Dairy Maid. Later, Young established a mildly successful art class at the YMCA, but the class was canceled after one of his students started an art club that took away his students in 1906. He managed to maintain some private lessons. Young hoped to make a commission by making and selling a bust of B.H. Roberts, but he did not have money to bronze it until 1908. However, Robert's first wife refused to buy the bust because it did not adequately portray her husband's personality. Young finally received more commission when he and Lee Greene Richards completed a mural for the Isis Movie Theatre, using themselves as models for the characters. This was the first outside mural done in Utah and the only one done by Young. However, news stories about the murals kept being killed, leading Young to believe there was a conspiracy against realist artists. However, there were few career prospects in the United States, as the art scene was dominated by conservative juries who were unwilling to take a chance on unknown artists and were uninterested in unique or groundbreaking styles. Museums and exhibitionists wanted to showcase academic art and did not want to showcase American art. Consequently, Young found it difficult to sell or exhibit his work in the United States. He found little success during his first five years back in the United States. However, a group of realists called "The Eight" hosted an independent exhibition in 1908 in Philadelphia, igniting the success realist artists could find in the United States.

Young improved his reputation by making a bust of Alfred Lambourne. In early 1907, the LDS Church granted Mahonri Young permission to create a life-size sculpture of Joseph Smith, the first president of the LDS Church, using his death mask. After the LDS Church rejected his work, Young offered to redo the piece and make an additional statue of Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith's brother. These statues were accepted and currently reside on Temple Square. Despite financial troubles, Young married Cecelia Sharp on February 19, 1907. Young had initially seen Sharp while both in Paris where Sharp had been studying piano; they had not yet met and Sharp had to travel back to Utah due to her father's health beginning to fail. In Utah, they attended the same LDS Church where Sharp's father was a bishop, but they had not yet met because Sharp was five years older than Young. Young and Sharp met in 1906 while Sharp was giving private piano lessons in Salt Lake City and fell in love. Young made a bust of Sharp in 1906. Polished and beautiful, the bust was different than anything he created during his career.

This is the Place Monument

Mahonri Young had a unique relationship with the LDS Church. Since his teenage years, he did not attend church, follow the Word of Wisdom, or pay tithing to the LDS Church. However, he did admire several LDS Church leaders and was proud of his pioneer heritage. Despite his lack of activity in the LDS Church, he lobbied heavily to work on several projects for the church. Largely considered to be his most important artistic work, Young was especially proud of This Is The Place Monument located at This Is the Place Heritage Park in the foothills of Salt Lake City. The most artistically significant relief on the monument depicts the Donner Party. The monument was intended to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Brigham Young and the Mormons' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. As early as 1935, a committee had been chosen to consider artists' proposals of the monument. Young did extensive research and sketching for the project, confident he would be awarded the chance to create the monument. After lobbying the committee for almost five months, he returned to New York, frustrated that he had not yet secured the project. He decided to lobby U.S. senators from Utah to gained federal funding for the project which offended committee member John D. Giles. Giles told Young that he could not give him a contract because they were waiting on funding from the LDS Church; however, Giles was actually stalling time to find a different artist to complete the project. The committee decided to make the monument proposal a competition, which worried Young because of his experience with the Pioneer Woman Competition. John Fairbanks, a younger artist, had already completed prominent statues and memorials for the LDS Church; he was Young's fiercest competition. LDS President Heber J. Grant chose Young's design in 1939, because it highlighted prominent figures Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Wilford Woodruff rather than a covered wagon, as in the Fairbanks design.

Young was awarded $50,000 to build the monument in 1939 when he was 62 years old. After he was granted the contract, many of the artistic qualities sought by Young were vetoed by representatives from Utah state government, the LDS Church, and descendants of pioneers. For example, Young wanted pioneer leaders in realistic clothing like they would have worn when entering the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. However, Young's vision of leaders like Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball in suspenders and bloomers was deemed undignified. Instead, pioneer leaders were portrayed in heavy formal overcoats. Young worked on the statues at Weir farm, assisted by Spero Anargyros. The monument was dedicated on July 24, 1947, on the one-hundredth anniversary of Brigham Young's party reaching the Great Salt Lake Valley. It is the largest sculpted monument in Utah. Even though Young was paid $50,000 for the monument, he believed that he was owed $11,000 extra according to the terms of the contract. He was angry when he was denied the money and eventually became frustrated enough to write to the president of the LDS Church George A. Smith directly. George Q. Morris of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles severely reprimanded Young for contacting Smith and Young was never paid the extra $11,000. Young resented this alleged contract breach for the rest of his life.

Style and works

Although Mahonri Young was taught the classical style which prevailed in the French art institutes of the time, and was surrounded by colleagues who sought to reject the classical style with impressionistic and post-impressionistic styles, Young was disinterested in depicting idyllic or naturalistic images and was more concerned with depicting the realities of life that surrounded him. Consequently, Young's work is often associated with social realism, as his work depicted laborers, immigrants, minorities, the West, and man's interaction with nature. At the time, Young felt isolated by his traditionalist instructors and colleagues who penned Young's work as "dishonest". The size of his work ranged from larger monuments to small sculptures which he typically did in the social realist style. His most recurring subject matter included animals, Native Americans, the boxing ring, ranch life, and laborers. Young greatly admired the work of Cyrus Dallin and Young's work often had parallels to that of Dallin's.

Mahonri Young was versatile in his subject matter and methods, yet his works were united in "powerful elegance". He was proficient in various mediums and techniques such as etching, drawing, watercolor, oil, gouache, and sculpture, which included his lesser known work on medals and reliefs. Even though he is known for his sculpture, he always kept a sketchbook with him and would use pen and ink, oil, and watercolor to depict scenes he saw on the farm. However while art critic, Frank Jewett Mather praised Young's drawings, etchings, and sculpture, he qualified Young's painting as average, suggesting that Young may have commenced painting at too old of an age or perhaps did not approach it with the same effort and care with which he approached his other mediums. Additionally, compared Young's work to that of Jean-François Millet, Honoré Daumier, and Constantin Meunier. Though Young vehemently denied it, some critics accused Young of imitating Millet's work. Young's work, particularly his earlier pieces, was also heavily influenced by Auguste Rodin. Young's sculpture of fighting boxers, Right to the Jaw is characteristic of Rodin's style with its curves and opposing diagonal movements. Young's experience as a sketch artist for the Salt Lake Tribune gave him a spontaneous style that he believed benefited his art. Young excelled in "depicting figures in motion" and "the psychological nuances of gesture". Rather than emphasize light, appearance, and technical skill as had prevailed in traditionalist art, Young preferred to emphasize rhythm, balance, movement, form, and design.

Legacy

Mahonri Young's career lasted more than fifty years with his works displayed in over fifty museums and galleries in the United States and Europe. Upon his death, his estate constituted 320 pieces of sculpture, 590 oil paintings, 5,500 watercolors, 2,600 prints, and thousands of drawings. Young was the first Utah artist to have his work displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Moreover, Young received nearly every award offered to artists in Utah. The Springville Museum of Art called Young "Utah's most famous New York-based artist". According to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Young gained a national reputation for his sculpture and graphic art. Guy Pène du Bois said, "Mahonri Young belongs among...those who of the strain of Michelangelo, Titian, Rubens, Goya, Renoir, and Millet...he is a rare sculptor in America". Young was a member of the American Watercolor Society. In 1940, the Addison Gallery of American Art hosted a retrospective exhibit of Young's various works. In 1999, the Brigham Young University Museum of Art in Provo, Utah opened a year-long exhibition of Mahonri Young's work called "Mahonri: A Song of Joys". The Young family donated over 7,000 various works of Young to Brigham Young University. Additionally, the BYU Museum of Art held an exhibition of Young's work during summer 2019.