Description
Miracle of the Gulls
Minerva Teichert, 1935
Teichert’s painting of Mormon pioneers portrays them seeking divine intervention to save their crops from destruction by crickets. Native Americans also sought spiritual help in the raising of their crops through ritualistic practices, as in Scholder’s Kachina Dancers seen on the right of this painting.
Miracle of the Gulls reveals the answer to prayer as seagulls appear and devour the crickets, aiding the pioneers in their efforts to cultivate the Utah desert. The loose brush strokes and lack of detail, combined with the dramatic supplicating pose of the central female figure, evoke a reverential mood. Evidently, Teichert’s heritage as a descendent of faithful pioneer women inspired her to depict a woman as a symbol of the pioneers’ devotion. (“American Dreams” Exhibition, 9/1/05 – 9/1/10)
What’s Going On?
Central to the image is a female figure kneeling with arms outstretched and eyes gazing upward. She is wearing a pink dress. Around her kneel five other figures, all dressed in subdued browns, with heads bowed. From the distance a line of seagulls flies to the foreground and begins to land around the group of figures. The background is open prairie fading into mountains and sky.
More About Teichert
The works of western American artist, Minerva Teichert, have received increasingly popular and critical acclaim in recent years. Today, the LDS community loves Teichert. She is a woman who successfully combined both faith and family and left an extraordinary legacy of artistic production.
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. Soon, she 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.
She attended the Art Institute of Chicago and Art Students League of New York in the early 1900s. There, mural paintings and theatrical pageants were dynamic components of American popular culture. Teichert embraced these art forms. Following the admonition of her art teacher – the American realist painter Robert Henri – she used the visual language these murals provided to tell the narrative of her religious heritage as well as that of the American West. (“Minerva Teichert: Pageants in Paint” Exhibition, 7/26/07-5/26/08)
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