When artist LeConte Stewart once heard a speaker's plea on television that people should repair old, rural barns and trim old hedge rows, it angered him so much that he stayed away from the television for a while.
On another occasion, Stewart got so enraptured with an autumn scene that he forgot to go inside in time for a Thanksgiving dinner.Now, LeConte Stewart, considered the "dean of Mormon art," is dead at age 99.
Stewart, who was dean of the University of Utah's art department for nearly 20 years, was perhaps best known for murals that he painted in three temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - in Laie, Hawaii; Cardston, Alberta, Canada; and Mesa, Ariz.
Stewart also painted two permanent murals inside the Salt Lake International Airport.
He died in a Clearfield nursing home Saturday morning, June 2, 1990, of causes incident to age. Funeral services are tentatively set for Wednesday in Kaysville.
Stewart was born on April 15, 1891, in southern Utah but spent most of his adult life in Kaysville. He was noted for his landscape paintings.
Stewart once told the Church News, "My middle name is `Old Barn.' I like them, and I have painted thousands of them, and I am going to keep on as long as they last, or as long as I last."
In a battle in the letters to the editor of Kaysville's newspaper, Stewart once fought the City Council over plans to restore old, weathered fences. He liked the way they looked.
Observers and writers have noted how Stewart always liked the later autumn months as the best time to do landscapes.
City fathers appreciated his work. In 1971, the city named an art museum after him.
Stewart was known for his quick, sometimes self-deprecating, wit and his teaching ability as well as his art.
Stewart never even saw an oil painting until he was 10, when he went to the Utah State Fair. He was 20 before he completed his first painting. He loved to draw in elementary school, however, even though teachers rapped his knuckles for doing it before he finished his arithmetic.
He struggled through art schools in New York City, sometimes eating only beans and bread in a windowless apartment. He was called on an LDS mission in 1917, where he helped paint the Hawaii Temple.
He was married to Zipporah Layton Stewart, who died in 1984.