John Jarvis

1946 - 0000

A descendant of pioneers who settled in the Utah Valley in the mid 19th-century, John Brent Jarvis was born in American Fork, Utah and raised just outside Provo in nearby Pleasant Grove, where he still lives and works today. As a child John grew up hiking and fishing in the nearby Wasatch Mountains. When his parents noticed his interest in art, they gave him a sketch/scrapbook by Saturday Evening Post illustrator and Western artist, John Ford Clymer, which he filled with drawings of animals and landscapes.

In his senior year of high school, John enrolled in an art class, which led to an art scholarship at one of the oldest colleges in the west, Snow College, where he earned his Associate of Arts degree. Jarvis went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from Utah State University in fisheries biology, with a minor in art, and then on the advice of his professor he enrolled at Brigham Young University to pursue an Master of Fine Arts degree. However, when he began selling paintings, he decided to leave Brigham Young after his sophomore year to paint full-time.

Jarvis works in his second-floor home studio overlooking the Utah Valley, at the base of Mt. Timpanogos in the Wasatch Mountain range. His love of the outdoors inspires him, while the collection of Indian artifacts, hunting and fishing trophies, guns, and outdoor gear that fills his studio serves as his reference material. Jarvis says he has, “always had an interest in Native American people and admired their reverence and the respect they have for the land that sustains them.” He works in watercolor and gouache, in a style influenced by the technique of Andrew Wyeth, to create paintings that typically feature 19th-century Indians in beautiful landscapes, signing them simply “John Jarvis.”

TRAVELER’S FIRE Gouache on Paper 2008 23 ¾ x 30 ½ inches