Bart Morse
1938 ~ 2010
Bart Morse, a Utah native, longtime University of Arizona art professor, and an accomplished watercolor painter has died. He was 71.He died Tuesday at his home in Newberg, OR after a long battle with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). Bart Jennings Morse was born in Sandy, Utah in 1938, along with his fraternal twin Bert, to Helen Dee Labrum and Jennings Bryan Morse.
Raised in a log cabin on the family farm, Morse saw education as a way to leave his rural roots. As a youngster, he was an avid reader and had a potent visual memory. He was introduced to abstract expressionism by his Jordan High School art teacher Don Olsen, who had in turn studied with Hans Hofmann in New York. Morse went on to earn a BS from BYU, and his MFA in painting and printmaking from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1964. He served in the Army Reserve.
He married Leslie Jean Frey in 1960 in the Salt Lake Temple and they were the parents of five children. The family settled in Tucson in 1970 when Morse took an assistant professor position at UA. Over the years he directed the painting department and was instrumental in overhauling and improving the printmaking department.
He also undertook scholarly research on Aboriginal art in Australia and European watercolorists before retiring in 2002.
Morse enjoyed teaching and encouraged students to make the most of their educational opportunities. He was always excited when they were successful. His work is in numerous public and private collections including The University of Utah, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, The Springville Art Museum, LDS Church Museum, The University of Arizona Museum of Art and the Tucson Museum of Art. He was shown in over 60 individual and group shows during his career and was represented by Phillips Gallery in Salt Lake City.
An enthusiastic and energetic outdoorsman, Morse loved backpacking, hunting, and fishing. The photographs and drawings that he made on these outings became source material for his varied and prolific artistic output. He was particularly fond of the remote geography of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah and also of the petroglyphs and pictographs made by the Fremont and Anasazi cultures. Throughout the 1990s Morse made seven trips as the interpretive artist with the National Forest Service's archaeological documentation program 'Passport in Time.'
Morse is survived by his wife,
Leslie, daughters Maury, Brooke and Magen, sons Marc and Aaron, his brother Bert Morse, and seven grandchildren.
His funeral service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 28th 2010 at Lake Hills Memorial Mortuary 10055 South State Street, Sandy, Utah. In lieu of flowers the family asks that a donation be made to the local food bank.