biography of Mahonri Mackintosh YOUNG (1877-1957)

Birth place: Salt Lake City, UT

Death place: Norwalk, CT

Addresses: NYC/Ridgefield, CT

Profession: Sculptor, painter, graphic artist, writer, teacher, educator

Studied: drawing with James Harwood, 1895-97, in Salt Lake City; ASL, 1899-1900 with Bridgeman, Kenyon Cox & Walter A. Clark; Acad. Julian, Paris, with J.P. Laurens & Verlet, 1901-05; briefly at Acad. Delecluse & at Acad. Colarossi with Injalbert.

Exhibited: Am. Art Assoc., Paris, 1903 (prize); Salon d'Automne, 1905; PAFA Ann., 1906-41 (11 times); NAD, 1908-34 (Barnett prize, 1911; Maynard prize, 1932); AIC, 1909-42; Berlin Photographic Co., 1913 (solo); Armory Show, 1913; Pan-Pacific Expo, 1915 (silver medal); WMAA, 1920-41; Rehn Gal., 1928 (solo); Olympic Games, Los Angeles, CA, 1932 (prizes); Corcoran Gal. biennials, 1935, 1937; SAE; Utah AI; AGAA, 1940 (retrospective)

Member: ANA, 1912; NA, 1913; NSS, 1910; SAE; NAC; AWCS; Century Assn.; AM Soc. PS&G; SAW, NIAL.

Work: large collection, Brigham Young Univ.; MMA; Hopi, Navaho & Apache groups, AMNH; Newark Mus.; NYPL; Peabody Inst., Baltimore; RISD; Salt Lake City AI; LDS Gymnasium, Salt Lake City; BM; Los Angeles Mus. Hist., Science & Art; monument, Protestant Cathedral, Paris; WMAA; BM; Providence Mus. Art; BMA; CGA; PMG; Brookgreen Gardens, SC; AGAA; WMA; CMA; Salt Lake City (UT) Mus. Art; Sea Gull Monument, Salt Lake City; This Is The Place Monument, Salt Lake City; monument, Tucson, AZ; statue of Brigham Young, Statuary Hall, U.S. Capitol, Wash, DC

Comments: Pioneer social-realist sculptor, he was the grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young. His subjects paralleled those of The Eight, and included laborers and boxers. He also favored western genre subjects and visited the Southwest three times (the first trip being to Arizona in 1912), modeling groups of the Hopi, Apache, and Navajo Indians for dioramas at the Amer. Mus. of Natural History. Among his best known public works is This is the Place" monument, 1947, at Emigration Canyon, Salt Lake City. Young was also recognized for his drawings, prints, and painting, and taught all of these at the ASL in New York. Teaching: Am. School Sculpture, NYC, 1905; instructor sculpture, drawing, etching, ASL, early 1920s. Auth.: article, "Modeling" in Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Sources: WW53; WW47; Frank Jewett Mather, Jr. Mahonri Young (exh. cat., Addison Gal., 1940); Roberta Tarbell, "Mahonri Young's Sculptures of Laboring Men, French and American Realism, and Walt Whitman's Poetics for Democracy," Mickle Street Review vol. 12 (1990): 114-212; Baigell, Dictionary; P&H Samuels, 545-46; Fort, The Figure in American Sculpture, 235."