Latter-day Saint painter and pioneer John Hafen was not a world-renowned artist, nor did he ever make it big trying to sell his artwork as he traveled the United States.
He lived large parts of his life and painting career barely scraping by, earning just enough money to make ends meet for himself and his family.
His contributions as a landscape artist and a man of faith, however, deeply influenced Utah’s artistic heritage and are currently being celebrated in an ongoing exhibition at Utah’s Springville Museum of Art.
“There was no more religious man than Hafen,” Vern Swanson — co-author of a biography on Hafen — recently told the Deseret News. “His testimony of the restored (Church of Jesus Christ) was impeccable.”
In 1890, early leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called Hafen and a handful others on a mission to Paris, France — not to preach, but to refine their painting.
What Hafen and his fellow “art missionaries” learned during their brief studies in France helped prepare them to work on painting the original murals inside the historic Salt Lake Temple, dedicated in 1893.
Hafen’s time in France also helped transform and inspire him in his career, where he advocated for art’s role in strengthening devotion and painted hundreds of pieces for the Church of Jesus Christ.
About Hafen’s life and mission working as a paintbrush in God’s hands
Swanson — who researched Hafen’s life and work for about 45 years, digging through hundreds of letters and cataloging Hafen’s hundreds of paintings — recently walked me through Hafen’s art exhibition at the Springville Museum of Art.
He also had me sit with him as he flipped through his recent biography on Hafen, which he co-authored with his daughter Angela Swanson Jones. The biography is titled “John Hafen: Utah’s Poet Painter.”
Hafen’s life was a testimony of “perseverance and enduring to the end, (and) my book is a ‘thank you,’” Swanson said.
Swanson’s eyes appeared to glitter each time he described Hafen’s artwork and techniques. When he spoke of Hafen’s character, family and hardships, it sounded as if the two had been friends for years.
“Few people were as good as (Hafen) was on a goodness scale,” Swanson said. “Few people were as talented as he was with his art. … Few people tried to do the work of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as much as he did.”
Born in Switzerland in 1856, Hafen immigrated with his family to the United States at 6 years old in 1862 and ultimately settled in Springville, Utah.
His skill and affinity for art developed at a young age, and his wife, Thora, whom he later married in 1879, became his rock. She always strengthened him in faith and supported him in his painting career.
The Springville exhibition — titled “Enduring Beauty: John Hafen and the Power of Art” — features a variety of Hafen’s landscape and portrait paintings, both from before and after his time in France.
Hafen’s early paintings display his “primitive, amateurist” skill, Swanson said, but they also serve to show how Hafen refined his craft and style over time.
In France, Hafen studied “elbow-to-elbow” with other aspiring artists at the Académie Julian from 1890 to 1891. When he returned to Utah, Hafen and fellow art missionaries Lorus Pratt and John B. Fairbanks worked together to paint the Salt Lake Temple’s original “World” and “Garden” room murals.
Hafen “painted beautiful things, beautifully,” Swanson told me. He painted rocks and rivers, mountains and valleys, trees and flowers, rendered in a soft, more impressionist style.
Two of Hafen’s paintings that particularly stood out to me at the museum were titled “Sunny Picture” and “Girl with Hollyhocks.” Both paintings captured intense light and shadow and used thick pigments to record quiet moments in time and nature.
“Girl with Hollyhocks” depicts Hafen’s second-oldest daughter, Delia. Hafen chose to paint the scene one Sunday when, as his family was getting ready for church, he glanced at the window and saw his daughter in a dress among the hollyhocks.
“When the light was right,” Swanson said, “(Hafen) painted her out there.”
About Hafen’s faith through trial
The story of Hafen’s life was one of “abject poverty,” Swanson also said.
Hafen often struggled to provide for himself, his wife and their 10 children. He owed many people money, and “it wore on him greatly.”
The hardships he faced, however, never deterred his faith.
Hafen “was very certain of the need for art to elevate humanity (and) to inspire devotion,” Swanson said. “He never started a painting without praying,” and he always worked to glorify God and his creations through his craft.
The market for buying and selling art in Utah was not ideal at the time, however. Most everyone then was a pioneer and didn’t have the time, money or inclination to purchase art, Swanson said.
Hafen sought to shift and influence this reality by teaching art as a necessity and essential in building faith and character. He continuously advocated for art, eventually organizing the Utah Art Institute, co-founding the early Springville Art Movement and donating art to help found the Springville Museum of Art — Utah’s first ever art museum.
Throughout his career, Hafen also spent years traveling to sell his work across the United States. He traveled to Washington, California, Illinois, New York, New England and Indiana, but had no true financial success in any place.
“There are times that I cried a lot writing this book,” Swanson told me.
He recalled Hafen once wrote his wife a letter, saying something like, “I have 3 cents in my pocket. That’s good enough for breakfast. We’ll just see what happens the rest of tomorrow.”
For two years, the Church of Jesus Christ subsidized Hafen to paint landscapes and portraits of church leaders.
Hafen created some of his best work during those two years, which spanned 1901 to 1903, Swanson said. Hafen “could slow down, he could paint larger and he had food on the table.”
Hafen died on June 3, 1910, at 54 years old.
Speaking at his funeral, James E. Talmage — a close friend of Hafen who would later serve as a Latter-day Saint apostle — said:
“(Hafen) was one of the few souls who got close to mine and influenced it. His spirit was gentle, beautiful and engaging. … (And) he always was the same.
“His spirit was like the sun. Clouds may obscure it at times, but above the clouds, the sun shines ever on, and it seemed to me that it was true of him, as this divine nature in him never dimmed.”
How to see the works
Hafen’s art exhibition features more than 60 works and will remain on view through July 25.
All interested are welcome to visit the exhibition at the Springville Museum of Art, free of charge, during the following days and hours:
- Monday from 6-8 p.m.
- Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Wednesday until 8 p.m.)
Exhibition curator Allison Pinegar told the Deseret News that working on the exhibition highlighted how Hafen’s work and sacrifices have “improved the lives of countless (people).”
She expressed hope that as visitors experience the exhibition, they can connect with Hafen’s belief that art and seeking beauty are “important and can add meaning to your life.”