Early Utah Artists

In 1890, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints took the unusual step of sending four artists to study in Paris. Known as the four art missionaries, John Hafen, Lorus Pratt, John B. Fairbanks and Edwin Evans were sent as the Salt Lake Temple was nearing the end of its construction. These missionaries were to “receive that training which would befit [them] to decorate His holy temples and the habitations of Zion." Thus began a rich heritage of fine art amongst early Utah saints.