John Heber Stansfield was born in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. As a youth, he worked as a shepherd in the high mountains near home, and began drawing with charcoal. Later, he observed two leading Utah landscape painters, J. T. Harwood and H. L. A. Culmer in their studios, but was largely self-taught as an artist. Stansfield was active in business and civic affairs, serving on the Mt. Pleasant City Council and as a trustee of the Presbyterian Church Board, and he designed the Mt. Pleasant City Hall. He taught at Snow College and elsewhere, and traveled out of Utah to paint, often to the California coast, where he met the great American landscapist, Thomas Moran. A prolific artist, he produced between 1500 and 2000 paintings, and exhibited in Utah, California, and New York.

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