IN DEFENSE OF MINERVA 1888-1976

"In heaven,
there will be red"

One of the most prolific painters in church history, was Minerva Teichert. She painted early pioneer life and western history she also did an entire series of work depicting Book of Mormon scenes but could interest no one in the church to purchase them. In the end she donated most of the series to BYU.
Minerva's work is very stylized and can be recognized long before you find her signature. Her work has appeared often in Church publications and as cover art for many books.
One of the crowning achievements of her life occurred at the age of 57, when she was called on a mission and with one assistant painted the murals for the world room in the Manti temple.
Minerva Kohlhepp was born in North Ogden, but grew up homestead farming in the vicinity of American Falls, Idaho. Her father encouraged her childhood sketching and she soon developed an "indomitable will to succeed and excel in the field of art." She taught school to raise enough money to go to Chicago for her art studies. When she had raised the money, her father would not let her go alone. It was arranged for her to be "set apart" as an LDS missionary so that she could travel with a church group.
She became the first known female artist to pursue her painting lessons with the specific and official blessings of the LDS hierarchy. When money ran low in Chicago, she put together a roping act for the New York stage. This is when she began her custom of wearing her distinctive head band. She became very good friends with her teacher, Robert Henri. He encouraged her to go home and "paint the Mormon story." And this is what she determined to do with her life. Here is an excerpt from her own autobiographical life sketch, written in 1947:

"I married my cowboy sweetheart, which was right. My first son was born while my husband was serving in France. I painted stage scenery to pay for his birth. I painted what I loved for the Pocatello Tabernacle "Not Alone", and got thirty-eight dollars for it. . . .For the next ten years I helped in the hay fields. My first three little boys grew up beside a haystack. . . .When the American Falls Dam went in I was the last white woman out of the Snake River Bottoms. . . .I spent most of the mornings for the next fifteen years in the milk house. The children must be educated, etc. I painted after they were tucked into bed at night.......

I must paint. It's a disease."