By Cindy Washburn
Marian Wardle never asked her grandma about art. Of course, she loved spending time with her grandma. Who cared that the house smelled like linseed oil rather than cookies?
It was not until after her grandma had died and Wardle was pursuing a master”s in art history that she started to learn more about her grandmother”s artistic legacy. With a grandmother like Minerva Teichert, there was plenty to learn.
Now Wardle has the opportunity to share what she knows with the BYU community as curator for the Museum of Art Teichert exhibit, which will be on display through May 2008.
“All her grandchildren could tell stories, but I can put her in her artistic context,” Wardle said.
The exhibit, “Minerva Teichert: Pageants in Paint,” highlights Teichert”s love of storytelling and her flair for the dramatic. Each painting tells a story using pageantry-styled positioning of the characters to help the viewer understand the context.
“It”s one of those exhibitions that perhaps is not as conceptually deep and probing, but is certainly visually thrilling; the aesthetic is lush and colorful,” said Rita Wright, museum educator.
Teichert utilized a full, loose style, which is sometimes mistaken as evidence of a lack of formal training, but was in fact a conscious stylistic choice, Wright said.
“A lot of people think she was a primitive, untrained artist,” Wright said. “But she had the finest education available.”
Teichert trained in top art schools in both Chicago and New York, and she did well, Wardle said. But at the prompting of Robert Henri, her instructor in New York, Teichert returned to the West to tell the stories of her Western and Latter-day Saint heritage through her artwork.
After coming back to the West, Teichert married and had children but never stopped painting.
“Her life was seamless,” Wardle said. “She would be cooking and step around the corner and do a few brushstrokes.”
Some of the works of art Teichert is most famous for are her Book of Mormon murals at BYU and her artwork in the World Room at the Manti Temple.
Teichert”s World Room murals have a unique subject to them – richly dressed people ignoring beggars, while most World Rooms depict desert scenes and barren landscapes. Teichert”s choice of subject reflects her own personal idea that the world of opulence and accumulation is desolation, Wright said.
“You don”t want too many things,” Teichert said, as quoted in the April 1989 Ensign. “They become a burden. In fact, we shouldn”t have too many things in this life, just enough for our needs. … Do good with all the rest.”
Teichert made her life rich with her family and her art, and this exhibit is a chance for others to share in the wealth.
The museum will be hosting an opening reception for the exhibit 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Lied Gallery on the museum main level. Light refreshments will be served, and the event is free.
Exhibit Info
What: Opening Reception, Minerva Teichert exhibit
When: 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Museum of Art
Light Refreshments
Free
