The Legacy of Mormon Furniture by Marilyn Conover Barker
Collectors are awakening to the beauty and grace of Mormon furniture as introduced in this fascinating volume, a flowering in the desert of a high-style culture few have had the opportunity to see for themselves. In the first definitive book on Mormon furniture, the creative range of individual Mormon craftsmen is captured in photos and diary accounts spanning a thirty=year period over a century ago. In contrast to better-known, severely simple Shaker furniture, the epitome of a uniformity in style required by the religious dogma of its artisans, Mormon cabinetmakers were rewarded for their resourcefulness and fresh interpretations of Empire and Scandinavian designs executed to the classic taste of their leader and prophet, Brigham Young.
A trained cabinetmaker in his own right, Young commissioned furniture from simple in style to the most lavishly carved and faux-painted, each elegant piece exquisitely crafted from wood available in a stark wilderness or brought along as packing boxes and wagon parts. Master craftsmen from Europe also came as converts to assist him in the colonization of the Utah Territory to establish a refined society, a unique desrt empire call Deseret.
