The following is an excerpt from an upcoming book entitled "The Tullidges of Utah," by Richard S. Cordery, and is used with permission of the author, who retains copyright.

John Tullidge was born in Weymouth, Dorsetshire, England on April 17, 1836, the son of John Elliott Tullidge, a celebrated choir master, composer and tenor vocalist. John's father was home but little of the time, mixing "in such high circles with lords and dukes, that he spent most of what he earned," leaving his wife Elizabeth to provide for the family from the proceeds of keeping a grocery store. John's sister, Mary Elizabeth, recounted that the Tullidges had been "living a life of genteel poverty" for some time. Raised as Methodists, the children went to Sunday school, and received "a liberal education" in private and public schools.

The young John Tullidge displayed artistic talent early, frequently making the rounds of the picture shops of his native town and sketching scenes along the English seacoast. Haseltine states that Tullidge was prevented from "formal art study except for meager training at Milready," however, research indicates that a more likely source for this training would have been William Mulready, an Irish Romantic painter who tutored privately. Tullidge's training was short-lived, however, for at the age of 14 he was apprenticed in the trade of house and decorative painting. Although the trade was kindred to the art he loved, and gave him the technical skills with which to transition to fine art, the lack of a legitimate art education was something "he always keenly felt."

Following in the path of his elder brother, Edward W. Tullidge, the prolific publisher, playwright, and chronicler of early Utah and Mormon history, John Tullidge was converted to Mormonism in 1854, and in 1858 joined his parents and siblings in Liverpool, a major shipping port and disembarkation point for converts emigrating to America. While working with John Matthews in Liverpool as a coach painter, Tullidge became acquainted with his daughter, Mary Jane, and the two were married in 1861.

On May 30, 1863, Tullidge, his wife, and eighteen month-old daughter, Mary Elizabeth, left Liverpool for New York on board the ship Cynosure with several hundred Mormon emigrants. After a harrowing voyage, in which the ship endured a mid-Atlantic storm, a deadly outbreak of measles, and a seaman lost overboard, the ship finally reached New York Harbor on July 19, 1863. The Tullidges then journeyed by train and ferry to Florence, Nebraska, and on August 9, began the eight week migration across the Great Plains with John W. Woolley's company. Two weeks after departing Florence, Tullidge's daughter, now twenty-two months old, died and was buried on the Plains.

The Woolley Company arrived in Salt Lake City on October 4, 1863, and Tullidge was immediately welcomed into the newly formed Deseret Academy of Fine Arts as an instructor of landscape and figure painting, sketching and perspective. He was "considered an excellent instructor of perspective, landscape, and life drawing." The Academy closed after ten months, however, for lack of paying students. Tullidge had also begun work as a scene painter at the Salt Lake Theatre, where he met early Utah artists George Ottinger, Danquart Weggeland, and later Alfred Lambourne. The great 19th century landscape artist, Albert Bierstadt, came to Utah the same year to paint the local scenery.

In 1864, Tullidge accepted a major commission to supervise the painting, wood graining and marbling of the interior of the Council Hall, now the Old Salt Lake City Hall. To be entrusted with the responsibility of supervising the painting and decorating of the interior of a new public building, a City Hall no less, only a few months after arriving in Salt Lake City, was a remarkable endorsement of his talent and ability by the city fathers. No less remarkable was the manner in which he had gained the trust and confidence of other artisans who worked under him.

In 1867 Tullidge advertised in the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph that he was ready to do "house, sign, carriage and ornamental painting in the highest style." In 1868, Tullidge and John McAvoy advertised in the Deseret News as Tullidge & McAvoy, "prepared to execute in the finest style of the Art, Painting, Graining and Marbling."

The year 1869 proved momentous for John Tullidge in more than artistic matters. The same year that saw the completion of the transcontinental railroad effectively ending the Utah Territory's isolation from the rest of the nation, also found him immersed in the struggle of disaffected British merchants and intellectuals against the autocratic rule of Brigham Young. The year before, William S. Godbe, a prosperous patron of Tullidge, and Elias L. T. Harrison, a leading intellectual and friend of Edward W. Tullidge, had founded the Utah Magazine, which became an organ of dissent against Young and the Mormon Priesthood. Godbe and Harrison were summoned to the High Council of the church, and after summary investigation, excommunicated. John Tullidge, among those present who refused to sustain the decision, and called before the High Councilors to explain his support of the Utah Magazine, eloquently defended his friends, endorsing their views and sentiments. He was then asked, as was his brother Edward, to relinquish his membership in the School of the Prophets. Two days after the hearing, Edward W. Tullidge, in a letter to Brigham Young meant for publication, resigned from the church. John Tullidge, in a moving and defiant speech published in the Utah Magazine, vowed to "be true to that which I have given the devotion of a life. For seventeen years I have stood by my faith, and dare not apostasize from it now, to embrace a temporal and commercial Gospel. The faith once delivered to the Saints, is mine. Upon its platform let me stand, though the price for desiring to be a man should be that which my brethren have already paid, for daring in the Utah Magazine to maintain the rights and conscience of men." It is not known whether John Tullidge was ever in fact excommunicated; like many of the "Godbeites," he may have simply fallen away from the Mormon church.

The same year, at the 9th Annual Territorial Fair of 1869, Tullidge won a diploma in sign painting and exhibited his first "landscapes of merit." In 1871, Tullidge & McAvoy was again retained to carry out the wood graining and marbling of the interior of a newly constructed building housing the Liberal Institute, an organization whose aim was to foster political change in the territory. In 1872, the Salt Lake Daily Tribune noted that "Tullidge produced a fine painting of scenery in American Fork Canyon, which he yesterday sold for $125.00. Several of his pictures have been favorably noticed by connoisseurs." In 1873, another great 19th Century American landscape painter, Thomas Moran, arrived in Utah to paint Wasatch mountain scenery.

In 1874, an article in the Salt Lake Daily Herald referred to Tullidge as a "well-known artist of this city" who had opened an art gallery on Main Street opposite the Clift House. The gallery was situated in a parlor behind his paint and paper decorating business, Tullidge & Co., at 249 S. Main Street. As his business thrived, Tullidge was afforded the enviable luxury of spending more and more time at his easel. He gave art lessons privately, and his shop was kept open at night, where it became a meeting place for artists and art connoisseurs. Tullidge held annual exhibits of his work, as well as that of other artists, and participated in art union raffles to encourage local talent.

John Tullidge was largely self-taught. His "deep, sincere study of nature," and keen observation of the variegated effects of light on a scene, helped to refine his technique, as did studying the Masters by rendering reproductions of paintings by his favorite artists, among them Landseer, Millet, Hamilton, Hart, Inness, Whitteredge, Moran, Casilear, and others, at the same time producing original works that led one critic to observe: "Mr. Tullidge is an untiring and conscientious worker, and we are gratified to note a steady improvement in his productions."

By the late 1870's, Tullidge was being ranked with Ottinger, Weggeland and Lambourne. He had also gained the valuable patronage of the Walker brothers (Matthew H., David F., Joseph R., and Samuel Sharp), one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Utah, each commissioning numerous works by the artist. In 1879, he served as an awards committee member during the Territorial Fair, and won First Prize in the class of animal portraiture. Later that year, Tullidge, who was often a guest of Matthew Walker at his farm in Cottonwood Canyon, was commissioned by Mr. Walker to paint some Cottonwood Canyon scenes from original sketches. The commission resulted in two of Tullidge's finest and most detailed early canvases, Old Mill at American Fork Canyon, and Lake Mary in the Cottonwoods. Both paintings were exhibited in the gallery window of the Walker House Hotel, opposite Tullidge & Co. on Main Street. The paintings were highly praised and exhibited often, and did much to establish Tullidge's reputation as one of the premier artists of the city.

In 1880, Tullidge sold two Pennsylvania scenes to Samuel Sharp Walker. The Salt Lake Herald said of these paintings: "In the handling of colors and in poetic effect, combined with delicacy of touch, this gentleman ranks high." The same year, Tullidge sold four landscapes to Owen Pierpont, the silver mining magnet of Denver, Colorado, who had purchased them all for $200.00 on a recent visit to Salt Lake City. In 1881, Tullidge and Weggeland combined efforts to produce several dog studies and child portraits, and exhibited their work jointly. At the first exhibit of the newly formed Utah Art Association, Tullidge displayed at least a dozen paintings, including several marine subjects, and donated an "Egyptian Scene" to help defray the Association's expenses.
br> The 1880's proved to be Tullidge's most successful and prolific period as an artist and commercial painter. In 1882, Tullidge was again commissioned to do "the ornamental painting and papering" for one of Salt Lake City's newest and most opulent buildings, the Walker Opera House. The Salt Lake Daily Herald said of his decorative work, "Mr. John Tullidge's taste& stands unrivalled, and we need only point to the artistic blending of lovely colors in the Opera House, and the residences of the elite of the city." His painting "Sunset on the Coast" sold for $125.00, a handsome sum at the time.

In 1883, Tullidge unveiled a 10' x 15' canvas of a rampaging elephant mounted as an advertisement on the exterior wall of Cunnington & Co., popularly known as The Elephant Store, stirring up much publicity for its realistic depiction. At Tullidge's annual exhibition he showcased 35 new paintings, and in 1884 exhibited a dozen more, among them some of his finest canvases, including "Among the Peaks," "A View of the Great Salt Lake (East of Garfield)," "The Tempest," "Parley's Canyon in Springtime," and "Sunset on the Great Salt Lake." Local critics began lauding Tullidge's "genius" for "charming and realistic" atmospheric effects, praising the artist's "wonted refinement" of taste and his "handiwork and skill," declaring that with each new canvas, Tullidge "with increasing years grows brighter." Tullidge was also highly sought after as a decorative artist to his wealthy patrons, his frescos for the home of John W. Lowell bringing especially high praise.

In December 1883, the Salt Lake Daily Tribune reviewed Tullidge's annual exhibition, and revealed an intriguing link between Tullidge and the great 19th century American landscape painter, Albert Bierstadt. The reviewer, admiring the smoky, hazy atmospheric effect in one of Tullidge's canvases, noted that "Bierstadt, when he was in the city a few years ago, complimented Mr. Tullidge very highly on what is technically called 'the middle distance.'" Bierstadt was known to have visited Salt Lake City as early as 1863, and then again in 1871 during his move to San Francisco. He most likely journeyed back through Salt Lake City in 1873 on his way to New York City. Tullidge had certainly established himself as a landscape painter as early as 1871, and Bierstadt would easily have been exposed to his work. Meeting one of the premiere landscape painters in the nation, and receiving praise from him, must have been one of the highlights of Tullidge's artistic career.

Although Tullidge was enjoying favorable attention at this time, he felt the first sting of criticism when a second review of his work at Calder's exhibition appeared in the Salt Lake Daily Herald on May 30, 1884. The critic wrote: "John Tullidge has ten pictures in the exhibition, and as he is another old Utah favorite there can be but one opinion in regard to his work - that it possesses decided merit, but that he has not attained the excellence in method and composition which his talent would have enabled him to reach under more favorable circumstances." The critic went on to chide Tullidge for depicting scenes "with which the artist can have had but little acquaintance if any, and has many defects which are to be ascribed strictly to that cause."

Tullidge's lack of a formal art education had been fairly well disseminated, in fact, as early as 1881, his brother Edward had published an article in his Quarterly Magazine entitled "Art and Artists in Utah," in which it was said of John Tullidge that it "is to be regretted that youthful circumstances did not favor the natural development of his artistic tastes." The critic of the Salt Lake Daily Herald had used this same observance, paraphrasing it, as a basis for dismissing Tullidge's work as "pretty but not true," concluding that "circumstances," i.e. the lack of formal training from an accredited art school or qualified Master, not only prevented him from attaining excellence in method and composition, but accounted for deficiencies in his work.

The remarks caused much consternation and rebuke from Tullidge's colleagues, who rallied around him, and within a few days, a Letter to the Editor appeared in the Salt Lake Daily Tribune from an anonymous "Traveler," stating that he had "never been more forcibly reminded of the truth that Fools rush in where angels fear to tread than in reading art criticisms of the past week&. It would seem that all that is necessary to become a critic is to read Ruskin a little, get a few art terms, put on an eye glass and slash away& and those who sit down to write a slashing criticism would do well to remember that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

John Tullidge vowed that a lack of formal art training would never hinder his young son, Charley. The boy had already shown a remarkable aptitude for drawing, and he seemed blessed with an abundance of natural talent. Tullidge took Charley on hunting and fishing trips, and as the two trekked through the Wasatch mountains together, sketching the scenes around them, the elder man extolled to his young charge the vicissitudes of nature as seen through a painter's eye. Tullidge would make sure that "circumstances" never hindered Charley's growth as an artist. He would see to it that his son received a legitimate art education, at the finest schools in Paris. And he would teach him everything he knew.

In 1885, Tullidge accepted a commission by J. R. Walker to fresco a room of his house. The ceiling was laid off in four panels in which Tullidge depicted fruits and flowers representing the four seasons, and morning glories, grapes and apple blossoms hung in rich festoons from trellises and bas-relief cornices. The Salt Lake Daily Herald claimed it had never seen "a room in which the total effect of harmony and beauty of color and design, is more strikingly apparent& without anything being over done, a most judicious discrimination of line and colors&. The result is a magnificent piece of artistic workmanship."

Throughout 1886 and 1887, Tullidge continued producing many fine views of the Great Salt Lake, east of Garfield, as well as seascapes and numerous snow-capped mountain vistas in the style of Moran. He was at the height of his powers. His reputation for rendering water effects had become matchless: cascading over rocks into serene pools, transluscent streams revealing their rocky bottoms, the turbulence and spray of rushing water through a mountain glen, the effect of light upon a lake or saline shore, or the roiling waves of a stormy sea, all gave testimony to his artistry. The Salt Lake Daily Tribune declared his "Mount Shasta" to be a "genuine work of art worthy of a place on the walls of the National Academy. The mountain's magnificent snow-clad peak stands out grandly in the clear red light of the setting sun." His painting, "Coming Home to the Fold," completed in 1886, features a gnarled and partially uprooted tree whose limbs corkscrew menacingly over a road in the Cottonwood Canyons. A flock of sheep is emerging from a narrow pass, wending its way past the spectral tree to the safety of human habitation, symbolized by a small section of fencing in the foreground. The Salt Lake Daily Tribune commended Tullidge for rendering "the appearance of an atmosphere filled with snow and frost, where warm rays light up a portion of the picture," and on the "poetic charm" of the scene, "an entirely original idea with Mr. Tullidge" expressed "in very beautiful& lines."

An extensive newspaper article on local artists also appeared in December 1886, and featured a reasonably in-depth analysis of Tullidge's "style:"

John Tullidge succeeds best in his work, where the subject at hand admits of untrammelled and poetic treatment. For that reason, those land and sea- scapes where the locale is subservient to effect and sentiment, are those which he produces with the most freedom and power& Mr. Tullidge seeks not so much to paint a view, as he does to reproduce some impression made upon his mind by a passing phenomenon of nature; as the storm, the dawn, the sunset& The softness, the mystery, the ever varying expressions of water, sky and foliage are what he loves to tell of nature. In those of his works which are most successful, there is an absence of conventionality, much to be admired, and which shows them to be purely the outcome of the artists mind.

The writer, probably the same critic who had taken Tullidge to task two years earlier, only this time considerably chastened, still managed to resurrect his original complaint:

If in some of his pictures, the result falls below his high aim, it is because of a disregard of established rules upon which success so often depends. We do not mean that Mr. Tullidge is not true in his portraits of places&. but rather, we wish to convey that it is when painting& heartfelt works& that the best qualities of his style are called forth.

The author was clearly qualifying his remarks with regard to Tullidge being true to his subjects, and while there may be some validity to the observation, there is a troubling contradiction in claiming to admire an "absence of conventionality" with the expectation that the artist will follow "established rules." A time or two, certainly, Tullidge may have rendered what should have been a vertical landscape horizontally, or placed the horizon squarely in the middle of his canvas, or on a rare occasion used too much pink or the wrong tint of green; he may have even done some work that was not as finished as it should have been, but Tullidge was clearly willing to risk failure to achieve a greater level of relative truth than most other artists. An artist who truly understands the rules can break them, if he is confident enough in his ability to convey through his brush the mind's idea of what is pure and grand in "God's conception."

Fortunately, we do not need to speculate about Tullidge's artistic philosophy; we have his own words on the subject in a short treatise entitled "The Poetic and Divine in Art," which he wrote for publication in a local newspaper. In his essay, he defines art as "just what the genius of the man makes it. It does not fully depend on what is learned in schools nor in mere mechanical acquirement, but from the deep, sincere study of nature; to possess a soul in sympathy with her different moods, and in your works to make others feel what she has made you feel when in her presence - whether to reproduce some quiet nook, where peace and harmony reign supreme, or her more grander and sublime efforts. To do this is to be an artist in the true sense." Tullidge subscribed to William Hart's belief "that the value and character of a painting do not depend upon rules at all, but upon the imagination of the painter," and that the success of such depends upon some "quality of heart and mind that appeals to one's susceptibilities; in short, the impress of the artist must be stamped upon his work." For Tullidge, the highest aim of the artist was to express "pure and holy human sentiments" through his work, and far more often than not, Tullidge succeeded admirably in conveying in his landscapes "some power higher" than oneself.

Between 1886 and 1887, Tullidge added a large studio to his home at 319 S. W. 1st Street, with a "capacious window" facing north that evenly illuminated his collection of paintings. The walls were painted a neutral grey and graced by the artwork of Weggeland, Lambourne, Culmer, Ottinger, Dahlgren, and other local artists, as well as that of his own. The frescoed ceiling of the studio was widely admired, and his patrons lent Tullidge canvases to showcase alongside his newer works. Tullidge was now a "prominent" figure among the artists of the city, enjoying his greatest popularity, and had become by now a darling of the press. In 1887, he completed one of his finest landscapes, "Minnie Lake," a scene at the base of Mt. Baldy in the Albion Basin, Little Cottonwood, Alta.

And then tragedy struck. On August 20, 1887, a messenger was sent to the home of John and Mary Ann Tullidge with horrifying news. Their son Charley, age 7, had drowned in the Jordan River at the Black Bridge on Third South Street. He had left home that afternoon with a couple of playmates, and went down to the Jordan to swim. The point where the river bends under the bridge was known to be the most dangerous in the river, several people having already lost their lives there. In places, the water was fifteen feet deep, and strong swirling eddies created by the sudden bend in the river dragged the boy under. He frantically called for help, but his friends could not save him. The boy's body was found 500 yards downstream, and all efforts to resuscitate him failed. Upon the arrival of the body at the Tullidge home, the parents were "maddened with grief." A doctor was sent for, and the child pronounced dead.

John Tullidge was no stranger to the death of children. His youngest brother had died of scarlet fever at the age of seven. He had buried an infant daughter from his first wife, Mary Jane Mathews, on the plains. Before Charley's untimely death, he had already lost seven of his young children by his second wife, Mary Ann "Polly" Bowring, ranging from a few weeks old to eleven years of age, to diptheria, cholera and pneumonia. His son Arthur had died earlier the same year at the age of three. But Charley's death was different. He had been the "apple" of John's eye; the two had been inseparable. The boy had clearly inherited his father's artistic talent, and John had placed all of his future hopes on him. Now the boy was gone. And John Tullidge was never quite the same man again. Try as he might to seem cheerful, the luster in his eyes was gone.

The following month, Tullidge became a charter member of the newly organized Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce, and in November he donated "a fine painting of American Fork Canyon" to the Chamber's collection. Tullidge's former student and friend, Henry L. A. Culmer, served as the Chamber's editor, and was a primary organizer during the early Chamber years. The year 1887 closed with Tullidge's annual art exhibition, which showcased promising work by another of his students, James T. Harwood.

Tullidge was producing fewer original canvases now, as he became more active in community and cultural affairs. His style of painting may also have been much less in demand, as interest in the Hudson River and Rocky Mountain schools declined. The somber tones, soft hues and luminism in the works of these artists were no longer in vogue, as evidenced by the mounting criticism and impending neglect facing Bierstadt, and others, in favor of the Impressionist palette.

In April of 1888, the employees of Tullidge & Co. presented Tullidge with a gold-headed cane in honor of his fifty-second birthday. And he was engaged, along with Culmer, Lambourne and Weggeland, in painting a number of tableaus of Utah scenery for the exterior of the Chamber of Commerce's Exhibition Palace Car. Tullidge's contribution was a "Sunset in American Fork Canyon." The car left Salt Lake City on June 6, 1888, generating considerable press coverage, and began a three month trek throughout the East. Historians credited the tour with bringing thousands of new residents to the city in the 1880's and 1890's. Late in the year, Tullidge received a letter from Harwood in Paris, who had commenced his art studies at the Academie Julien.

At the Territorial Fair of 1889, Tullidge served as an awards committee judge. He also exhibited several marine paintings, earning a gold medal in that category for his "Sunset on the Lake," featuring a glowing red ball of fire sinking into the Great Salt Lake. The Salt Lake Daily Herald observed: "Only a bold artist would attempt such a theme, for the rare combination of colors and the peculiar cloud effects attending such a sunset make any actual transference to canvas almost an utter impossibility. But Tullidge has done well and makes a picture full of many admirable points."

Tullidge served on the Chamber of Commerce's standing committee on Art and Architecture until 1891. Privately, he and his wife "Polly" had been trying for another son. Clarence Ray was born in June of 1888, but died four months later. Julian Bellamy was born in May of 1890, but passed away in less than two months. In 1891, his daughter Belle became engaged to one of Tullidge's art students, George J. Maack. As a wedding gift to them both, he painted a seascape with sailing vessels entitled "The Rescue." The scene in the painting represented a popular motif in Tullidge's seascapes (he was perhaps the only Utah artist painting seascapes at the time), of relief boats dispatched from a larger sailing ship or steamer attempting to rescue passengers from a smaller vessel floundering at sea, or having been dashed upon a rocky shore. The legend in his youth of the wreck of the Abergevenny in Weymouth Bay, and his own harrowing experiences at sea aboard the Cynosure, were potent reminders of man's powerlessness against the awesome forces of nature. "The Rescue" was a somber gift, but rendered with a delicacy of touch that earned it a place over the fireplace mantle in the Maack's family home until George J. Maack died in 1937.

Tullidge partnered with Thomas Green from 1894 to 1895, and by 1896 he was turning over control of his business to his son-in-law. Tullidge & Co. became Tullidge & Maack. On November 16, 1897, only a few months after the first electric lights began to illuminate Main Street in Salt Lake City, Tullidge's wife, Polly, died at the age of fifty. Now all of his best hopes were gone, those whom he had loved most having preceded him in death. Those who knew John Tullidge intimately described him as "sensitive and large-hearted," as one who lived in "a humble, noiseless way& His life had many sorrows, which he hid away in his own heart, and only a few people ever knew of their existence."

Tullidge turned out a few more canvases, mostly seascapes and copies of his earlier successes, but they were hollow echoes of past triumphs. The magic was gone. He was now giving his canvases away. In January, 1898, he traveled to Springville to visit his daughter Kate, bringing "a half-dozen very fine marines and landscapes with him to the city." Tullidge donated several of his canvases to Dr. George Smart, who displayed them among his collection in the Young Memorial Building of the LDS University, now Brigham Young University. Dr. Smart was "a great admirer of Tullidge," and "this artist's work had the greatest influence in starting the collection. Mrs. Smart was at one time a pupil of Tullidge."

The Deseret Evening News reported on June 20, 1899 that "John Tullidge, the well known artist, passed peacefully away this morning at 6 o'clock, at the age of 63 years. The works of art that have emanated from his fertile brain are known to the residents of this State." The Salt Lake Herald described Tullidge as "an artist of unusual ability, and many of the houses in this city are adorned with the product of his genius." The Salt Lake Tribune, however, came closest to expressing the essence of the man and his work:

John Tullidge, had he been more aggressive, would have made an extended name in the world. He was a natural artist; his eye was perfect and his hand clever. Under different surroundings, with broader opportunities, to have softened and exalted his natural talents, he would have made a pronounced success in the world.

Tullidge's funeral was held at the Seventh Ward Meeting House on June 22, 1899, and was largely attended. An artist's palette set upon an easel, the whole formed of flowers, was sent by the United Committee of Painters, and a beautiful pillow of flowers was offered by the Society of Utah Artists. A male quartet provided music for the services. Old friends spoke admiringly of his life, among them Henry L. A. Culmer, Danquart Weggeland, George M. Ottinger and Joshua Midgely. A beautiful and touching poem entitled "A Farewell, to My Friend John Tullidge," written by Alfred Lambourne, was read by Mr. Lambourne's daughter. A brass band marched the funeral cortege to Eagle Gate, where cars were taken to the Salt Lake City Cemetery. At the grave, Henry L. A. Culmer read a poem and dedicated the grave. Ottinger, Midgely and Weggeland were among the pallbearers.

It was ultimately fitting that Tullidge did not live to see the arrival of the new century. He had lived long enough to see the art he loved become "a thing of fashion," and his own work eclipsed by a new school of painters. In Tullidge's own lifetime, he saw the Liberal Institute building, in which he had done the marbling and woodgraining, become a male dormitory. The building was razed to the ground in 1904 to make way for a new building on the Westminster College campus. In 1891, the Walker Opera House burned to the ground, and with it Tullidge's "ornamental painting and papering," as well as frescoes by Weggeland, and a magnificent drop curtain scene painted by Lambourne. In 1961, the Old City Hall building, its original wood and plaster long since deteriorated, was dismantled block by block and moved to Capital Hill. Tullidge's home and studio at 319 S. W. 1st Street, lacking electricity or plumbing, suffered the fate of many old homes at the turn of the century, including those of his many patrons, and was torn down after the Great Depression.

Along with other early Utah artists and 19th century American landscape painters, Tullidge suffered decades of neglect and obscurity after his death in 1899, resulting in the probable loss of many of his finest works to the trash heap of the art worlds past. Tullidge canvases today are considered rare by collectors. Newspaper transcripts between 1867-1899 reference over one hundred paintings by Tullidge, but few of these works, whose titles and descriptions are documented in the transcripts, have actually been located or positively identified in private collections or museum holdings. Similarly, of the canvases that we do know to exist, many of these cannot be identified in the documentation, suggesting that Tullidge produced approximately three hundred paintings in his lifetime. Recent cataloguing efforts have accounted for about thirty-eight canvases. Many are in private collections, while others are in the permanent collections of art museums in Utah.

In 1983, the Springville Museum of Art published Collectors of Early Utah Art, a treatise intended to foster private collecting in Utah, and to promote scholarly research "about the art and artists in the Beehive state." This led to the publication in 1991 of Utah Art by Vern Swanson, Robert Olpin and William Seifrit. Both publications succeeded admirably in rekindling interest in the early Utah artists, among them John Tullidge. Consequently, Tullidge's work has shown a remarkable appreciation in value in the past two decades.

In the absence of any new or substantive critical reassessment, however, Tullidge continues to be rated by art pundits and academicians as a "local artist of minor fame." While Robert Olpin compliments Tullidge on his "calm, but nicely brushy luminism," he equates him with some of the "secondary figures" of the Hudson River School. William Gerdts, in his book Art Across America, categorizes the work of both John Tullidge and Reuben Kirkham as "bordering on the niave," although their work "represents some of the earliest stages of professional landscape work in the territory." Stylistically, however, Tullidge seems to have very little in common with Kirkham. William Seifrit writes that Kirkham "simply did not paint in the same manner as those around him," and faults his "invention far above execution, and overattentiveness to some details and neglect of others." Kirkham could certainly be classified as "niave," or even justifiably a "folk" artist. However, when we examine the views of Tullidge's work as expressed in the historical record, these views seem juxtaposed to Gerdts' assessment. In his preface to Utah Art, however, Gerdts credits both Tullidge and George Beard for "rendering in an objective, naturalistic manner" the spectrum of regional landscape in their "pictures of the Wasatch Mountains." Richard Oman opines that Tullidge "worked in a somewhat unsophisticated fashion within a style that has come to be seen as old-fashioned." Oman's unflattering remarks contradict the historical record, which clearly show that in his day, Tullidge was highly prized for his "delicacy of touch," his "refinement" of taste, his "handiwork and skill," and the "charming and realistic" atmospheric effects in his paintings. The proof of John Tullidge's ability and talent as an artist lie in the well-documented artistic and financial success he enjoyed during his lifetime; his generous and appreciative patrons; the unqualified praise he received from colleagues and critics; the validation of his work by a renowned American artist such as Albert Bierstadt; and in the very evident satisfaction that private collectors and museum directors take in having a Tullidge canvas in their collection. As one proud owner of a Tullidge painting quipped, "I love old fashioned!""

Museum directors and art dealers in Utah point out the difference between the Utah and national art markets. Tullidge exhibited his work exclusively at galleries in Salt Lake City and at territorial fairs, and while there is no evidence that he was represented by dealers outside the state of Utah, it was primarily gentile merchants rather than Mormons who purchased his work. His subjects, and style of painting, were meant to have a wider appeal for eastern markets, but scenes of the Rocky Mountain West were not in great demand there, except for those painted by such artists of the eastern salons as Moran and Bierstadt. Today, the LDS Museum of Church History and Art, Brigham Young University's Museum of Art, the University of Utah's Museum of Art, and the Springville Museum of Art, have the largest combined collection of Tullidge canvases, and while Mormon art historians claim Tullidge as one of their own pioneer artists, dealers and curators in Utah are the first to acknowledge that their intent is to keep the work of Utah artists in Utah.

Nationally, a small number of Tullidge canvases have been dispersed from the west coast of California to the east coast of Maryland. A few canvases, having found their way into other markets, were later returned to Utah museums as gifts from collectors. One Tullidge painting, however, has gained national exposure. In a broad stroke of irony, the canvas depicts one of the landmarks of local scenery in Utah: the bathing houses on the Great Salt Lake near Black Rock, east of Garfield. Research indicates that the painting was completed in 1882. The Salt Lake Evening Chronicle observed on April 25, 1883 that "the peculiar tints produced by reflections of misty light upon the heavy saline sea are treated with much delicacy. Mr. Tullidge is very successful in harmony of colors, and this subject fully illustrates his capacity in this line."

"Black Rock on the Great Salt Lake," signed by the artist, is in the permanent collection of the Arthur J. Phelan Trust, and has toured extensively throughout the United States. It was acquired by a New York gallery from an antique dealer in Utah, and later traded to Rifkin-Young Fine Arts in Bronx, New York, where it was purchased in 1988 by Mr. Phelan. The painting was exhibited soon after at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, the Rockwell Museum and Cultural Center, the Frederic Remington Art Museum, and from 1990 to 1996 permanently displayed in the office of the Mary Ellen Withrow, Treasurer of the United States, at the U.S. Department of Treasury, Washington, D.C. In 1998, the painting was exhibited in Beyond the Mississippi, Nieteenth-Century Views of the America West from the Phelan Collection, and thereafter in the office of Alan Greenspan until December 1999. For the next four years, "Black Rock on the Great Salt Lake" toured as part of Phelan's Window on the West exhibition to the Phippin Art Museum in Prescott, Arizona, and the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

An obituary of John Tullidge noted that "his patriotism was a passion with him. He loved his country, and he wanted Utah to become in perfect accord with the nation. It seems fitting then that his work should be displayed in the prominence of the nations capital, and that his talent should be showcased alongside the work of other great American artists like Frederic Remington, Carl Wimar, Karl Bodmer, John Henry Hill, James Stuart, and others. It had been a lifelong dream of John Tullidge, surrounded as we are with the grandest scenery&. Where in the wide world can we see grander sunsets than ours? What beauty, what charms are seen in our misty morning effects, when all nature is bathed in that subtle garb of mystery which is always so fascinating in a picture! &what a grand study they offer to the painter who has the skill to grasp and the power to transform them to canvas! With these advantages we ought to turn out a school of landscape painters that will add dignity to our Territory and give us fame and eclat among the art lovers of the world."