Steve Bower frequents local secondhand shops to look for bargains. Recently, he found one. It was an Everett Thorpe portrait of a young man and girl, most likely a brother and sister.
Bower hopes to find the people in the portrait to see if they want to keep it in their family. The painting was dated 1952.
Longtime residents of Cache Valley might recognize the name of the artist. He started as a sports illustrator for the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune. He taught painting at Utah State University and has paintings hang around Logan. A person doesn’t have to go very far to find his work.
A lot of the artist’s work hangs in church and government buildings.
There is one in the Historic Cache County Courthouse, and Bluebird Restaurant has a timeline mural Thorpe painted. The mural begins with trappers and Native Americans and ends in 1988. Included are references to Watergate in the 1970s.
Kevin Chugg, at Al’s Trophy and Frames, had a class from Thorpe. He knows where many of his paintings are. Thorpe’s work can be found from Cache County to Franklin County, Idaho and west to Garland, near Tremonton.
“He has several murals at USU, in courthouses; he has several in churches,” Chugg said. “Most of his paintings are of Utah pioneers, that’s where he made his money; seemed to be his theme.”
His paintings can go for more than $10,000; they are highly sought after.
The artist was a native of Providence. He was born there in 1904 and experimented with drawing and painting in childhood and early adolescence, until he was able to move to California to take art classes from a prestigious art school, the Los Angeles County Art Institute. Thorpe returned to USU and went on to receive his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Utah, with additional study completed at Syracuse University and the Hans Hoffman School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
His career as a professor of art began in 1934 at USU and continued on until his retirement in 1972. In 1983, Thorpe died at the age of 78. Bower hopes to find the people in the portrait to see if they want to keep it in their family. The painting was dated 1952.
I believe the painting is of Leslie Thorpe Budge and her brother Greg Thorpe. Dorie Thorpe could identify the painting. She can be contacted at 435-752-1836. She is a resident at Terrace Grove.