Born in Lehi, Utah, James Taylor Harwood is considered by art historians, collectors and curators in Utah to be among the most talented of all of the state’s earliest native painters. Artist and teacher, Harwood studied printmaking in his early years with Utah artists Dan Weggeland and Alfred Lambourne. In 1884, he was accepted into the California School of Design in San Francisco, and later studied in Paris at the Academic Julian with Lefebvre, and also at Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts; he was the first Utahn to study in Paris, and, later, the first Utahn to have a work accepted in the Paris Salon. On his return to Utah, he began teaching privately from his studio. In 1923 he became art department chairman at the University of Utah. Today, Harwood’s work is found in every comprehensive collection of Utah art, public, corporate, or private.

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