1. Minerva Bernetta Kohlhepp Teichert was a 20th-century American artist who painted Western and Mormon subjects, including murals of scenes from the Book of Mormon.
59 Facts About Minerva Teichert
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Minerva Teichert received her art education from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League of New York, and was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Religious-themed artwork by Teichert includes Christ in a Red Robe, Queen Esther, and Rescue of the Lost Lamb.
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Minerva Teichert painted 42 murals related to stories in the Book of Mormon which reside in Brigham Young University's Museum of Art.
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Minerva Teichert was the first woman invited to paint a mural for an LDS Church temple.
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Minerva Teichert was born on August 28,1888, in Ogden, Utah Territory.
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Minerva Teichert was the second of ten children born to Frederick John Kohlhepp, a railroad worker and rancher, and Mary Ella Hickman, a suffragette and pamphleteer.
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Minerva Teichert grew up on a ranch in Idaho, taking advantage of her upbringing by sketching horses and ranch life from a young age.
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Minerva Teichert's mother gave Teichert her first set of watercolors when she was just four years old.
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Minerva Teichert enjoyed riding her horse, and exploring and sketching scenes from nature.
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Minerva Teichert was named after her maternal grandmother, Minerva Wade Hickman, who was one of the wives of frontier lawman and express rider "Wild Bill" Hickman, and a descendant of Colonial Governor Thomas Roberts of New Hampshire.
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Minerva Teichert's mother was an educated woman, who attended the Sacred Heart Academy in Ogden, Utah, instructed in language, arts, and music.
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Minerva Teichert was of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, French, Belgian, Spanish, and German ancestry.
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Minerva Teichert's father had come from a wealthy German-immigrant Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Minerva Teichert moved west as a young man in 1878.
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Minerva Teichert hunted bison and bear, and worked on ranches near Buffalo, Wyoming, and in the Powder River area.
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Minerva Teichert drifted into Utah through Brown's Hole and the Uintah Basin, finally making it to the mining town of Stockton, Utah, southwest of the Salt Lake Valley.
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Minerva Teichert was baptized into the LDS Church in 1886.
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Minerva Teichert left Idaho at age 14 to be a nursemaid in San Francisco.
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Minerva Teichert took some classes at the Mark Hopkins Art School.
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Minerva Teichert returned home, and after graduating from Pocatello High School, she taught in Idaho to earn money to travel east.
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Minerva Teichert studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under John Vanderpoel.
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Minerva Teichert finished her courses in 1912 and returned to Indian Warm Springs, Idaho, to earn more money.
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Minerva Teichert studied at the Art Students League of New York in 1914, where she studied under Robert Henri, George Bridgman, and Dimitri Romanoffski.
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Minerva Teichert earned money for school by sketching cadavers for medical schools.
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Minerva Teichert illustrated children's books and performed rope tricks and Indian dances.
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Minerva Teichert was offered a scholarship to study in London, but instead returned home to get married.
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Minerva Teichert spent most of her life on a ranch in Cokeville, Wyoming, while painting the things she knew and loved best: scenes from western Americana, and religious artwork expressing her deeply held convictions.
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Minerva Teichert painted in her living room; while working on murals, she folded her canvas and used the large end of a pair of binoculars to look at her work in perspective.
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Minerva Teichert once explained "I must paint", when asked about how she persisted in painting despite being in near-complete artistic isolation, without a dedicated studio or even much free time to create.
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Minerva Teichert was an independent, opinionated woman who stood up for women's rights and was an outspoken political conservative.
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Minerva Teichert shared her talents with others and gave art lessons out of her home.
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In 1947, Minerva Teichert won first prize in the LDS Church's centennial art contest and was the first woman to paint a mural for an LDS temple.
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Minerva Teichert originally considered making plays on the subject of the Book of Mormon, but instead made paintings.
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Minerva Teichert used live models, costumes based on sketches she had done while traveling in Mexico, and painted backdrops.
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Minerva Teichert gained inspiration through scholarly writers such as Hugh Nibley.
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Minerva Teichert painted over 400 murals, and is known for those inside the Manti Utah Temple, as well as a set of 42 murals depicting events in the Book of Mormon.
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Minerva Teichert painted murals for the LDS Church's tabernacle in Montpelier, Idaho.
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Minerva Teichert is depicted in a red robe at his second coming, referencing Isaiah.
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Minerva Teichert painted much of the clothing with patterns, a detail unique to her paintings.
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Minerva Teichert would include the color red to add contrast.
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Minerva Teichert often left the edges unfinished or just sketched.
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Minerva Teichert submitted many pieces of artwork to the LDS Church; however, during her lifetime, many of them were rejected.
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Minerva Teichert gave several paintings to BYU and painted a mural for the university in exchange for tuition for 19 family members and friends.
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Minerva Teichert's works are prolifically displayed around the BYU campus.
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Minerva Teichert was a member of the LDS Church, and her faith impacted the subjects of much of her work.
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Minerva Teichert was the first woman sent on an art mission by the church, first to Chicago, and then to New York City before she attended the Art Students League.
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Minerva Teichert served in various responsibilities in the church, including Primary president and on the Stake Sunday School Board.
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Minerva Teichert supported her activity in the church and donated tithing.
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Minerva Teichert had to stop painting due to a hip fracture from a fall in 1970.
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Minerva Teichert entered a nursing home in 1973 and died in Provo, Utah, on May 3,1976.
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Minerva Teichert was buried in the cemetery in Cokeville, Wyoming.
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Some other Minerva Teichert work was painted over by the artist herself.
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The mural covered the entire interior wall surface of the room, which Minerva Teichert's grandson described as the Latter-day Saint equivalent of the Sistine Chapel.
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The Minerva Teichert estate alleged that during March or April 2020, while the building was closed and inaccessible to the public in consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the paintings had been replaced with prints of the same works by the Church History Department.
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Johnson pointed to the loss of an original Minerva Teichert painting in the 2010 Provo Tabernacle fire, which prompted a cataloging of original artworks in the church's possession.
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The removal of the three Cokeville paintings during the COVID-19 pandemic followed the 2014 removal of another Minerva Teichert painting, The Song of Quetzalcoatl, to the Star Valley Wyoming Temple over the family's objections.
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The Minerva Teichert estate said the artist had placed the paintings in the Cokeville meetinghouse in 1955 with the understanding they would remain there, and if they were ever removed, they would be returned to estate heirs.
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The church, in turn, said Minerva Teichert had donated the art prior to her death.