LDS Church exhibits renowned artist's work — including some in a legal battle

SALT LAKE CITY — Minerva Teichert's murals instantly tell a story in her unique style of painting.

They depict life in the West, Latter-day Saint pioneers and scenes told in one of the faith's sacred texts, The Book of Mormon. Paintings by Teichert are being prominently displayed in a new exhibit opening at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' History Museum.

"She uses her art to tell important stories and for her, those stories are stories from scripture and stories from the Latter-day Saint migration to the West and the Western United States," said Riley Lorimer, the museum's director. "She is a deeply rooted westerner. Born in Utah, raised in Idaho and lived her adult life in Wyoming and really felt the call and the pull of the West."

Teichert is a renowned artist whose work has been displayed in public buildings (an original work hangs in the Utah State Capitol) and in chapels across the Western U.S. Her style of art was distinctive from her contemporaries, and she did most of her painting inside a tiny ranch house in Cokeville, Wyo.

"She used what she had," said Carrie Snow, the manager of collections care at the Church History Museum. "She used tent canvas, particle board, wood..."

Teichert was prolific, giving paintings as wedding gifts or paying her tithing with them. The paintings in the exhibit come from different sources. One painting was recovered from a Deseret Industries thrift store. It had been donated, and Lorimer suspects the owner did not know the treasure they had.

"Someone noticed that looked important and called the museum and said, 'I think you should look at this.' When it came to the museum there were grass clippings in the frame, it looked dirty. It was obviously kept in someone’s garage," she told FOX 13 News.

Some of the works on display are exhibits in a courtroom, too. One of Teichert's descendants has filed a pair of lawsuits, accusing the Church of taking paintings that did not belong to them, as well as violating the family's copyrights. The Church insists it has the rights to the paintings and they were donated by Minerva Teichert herself.

"The Church maintains that those lawsuits are without merit and are in the process of defending against those lawsuits," Lorimer said.

Attorneys for the Teichert family members who are suing did not immediately respond to FOX 13 News' requests for comment on the Church History Museum exhibition.

Many of Minerva Teichert's paintings in the exhibit have been painstakingly restored, Snow said. One work has only a fragment remaining of the original canvas. It was destroyed in a 2010 fire that gutted the Provo Tabernacle (now a temple).

"This piece, we managed to get it photographed after it was conserved, so that’s how we have this wonderful image here," Snow said, motioning to the work.

The exhibition runs until August 2024.

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