LATTER-DAY SAINT ART:

A CRITICAL READER

This ambitious publication is the first expert critical treatment of Latter-day Saint visual art, with twenty-two essays by scholars of various disciplines, perspectives, and backgrounds, and more than 200 elegant reproductions of Latter-day Saint art and objects.

Breaking New Ground in Latter-day Saint Art

Critical Reader wins 2024 AML Award in Criticism

“For insiders, the invocation of “Latter-day Saint art” typically conjures familiar prints hung on the burlap walls of a meetinghouse; for outsiders, the category may seem like a contradiction in terms. Various individuals and organizations, including inter alia the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts and the Book of Mormon Art Catalog, have labored over the past decade to bring the full range of Mormon art to the awareness of the public. A conspicuous absence in this endeavor has been a mature and critical understanding through which to evaluate and contextualize works of Mormon art.

“The landmark volume Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader has filled this gap with twenty-two scholarly essays exploring Mormon visual art in unprecedented breadth and depth. Editors Amanda Beardsley and Mason Allred have gathered original curatorial research and analysis from a range of disciplinary perspectives, alongside attractive reproductions of more than 200 works spanning panorama paintings, quilts, architecture, sculpture, cartoons, film, gallery installations, and indigenous works.

“Essays by Terryl Givens on Mormon theology of aesthetics, Heather Belnap on women artists and travel, Glen Nelson on modernism, and Mary Campbell on an historic photograph of Brigham Young’s daughters merit special commendation for stylistic excellence in criticism as literary genre in itself, using description of visual art as the occasion for essayistic discovery. This groundbreaking collection represents the first expert critical treatment of Mormon visual art and establishes a solid foundation not only for future scholarship but for Latter-day Saint self-understanding writ–or drawn–large.”

– AML official award citation

Praise & Reviews

I see Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader establishing the field of Mormon Art History within Mormon Studies in a very powerful way.
— Nicholas Strum, Scholars & Saints, the official podcast of the University of Virginia’s Mormon Studies program
Anyone interested in mormonism, art, visual culture – certainly should check out this book.
— Caroline Kline, Dialogue Journal of Mormon Thought 2024 Book Roundup
This is a large and very useful compilation of scholars analyzing a variety of topics… This is a wonderful resource that I strongly recommend.
— Professor Benjamin Park, Historian & Author of American Zion: A New History of Mormonism
The study of Latter-day Saint Art will never be the same.
— Maddie Blonquist, Curator of Religious Art at the BYU Museum of Art
The twenty-two chapters represent an impressive array of topics and approaches to Mormon art, with a thoroughness of research appropriate for academic publication.
— Rachel Helps, Dialogue Journal of Mormon Thought vol. 50 no. 3

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