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Show J Leo Fairbanks Biography Artist and Educator 1878-1946 Adapted from the Fairbanks Family in the West John Leo Fairbanks was born April 30, 1878, in Payson, Utah, the oldest of ten sons and one daughter born to John B. and Lillie Annetta Huish Fairbanks. Leo's father, a painter, was the first native-born artist in Utah. Leo's mother was known locally for her artistic handicrafts. Her children make special note of her dainty butter molds in the shapes of animals, people, and other designs. Leo received his first box of watercolors before his fifth birthday and immediately began tracing and painting pictures of all kinds. He was especially fond of painting outdoor scenes. When he was ten, he was his father's avid pupil. He set the goal of studying abroad, sought out local art instructors, and also taught drawing to begin saving for foreign study. Leo attended elementary and high school in Payson, then attended Brigham Young Academy (now Brigham Young University). During the years of 1891-1892, Leo's father, John B. Fairbanks, was called by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to study painting in France in preparation for painting murals in the Utah temples then under construction. When he returned from France, Leo and his father set up and operated a commercial photography studio known as Fairbanks' Art Studio, on Union Block, Provo City, Utah. During this time his father also taught at the Brigham Young Academy. After graduating from Brigham Young Academy, Leo taught school for a time at Mapleton, Utah, and then at the Weber Academy in Ogden, Utah. In 1901, Leo replaced his father who was then teaching at L.D.S. University while his father joined the Benjamin Cluff expedition to Central and South America. For two years, (1903 to 1905) Leo studied art in Paris at the prestigious Julian Academie where, in a class of more than four hundred students, he took honors in both painting and sculpture for two consecutive |
