C. A. A. Christensen
Handcart Pioneer's First View of Salt Lake Valley

The Artist - Carl Christian Anton Christensen C. C. A. Christensen was born in Denmark in 1832. He studied painting and toy making at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen. In 1850, he became a member of the Latter-day Saint (LDS) Church and served an LDS mission to Vest-Sjelland, Denmark. After returning home, he joined an emigrant company that took him to England and eventually to New York. From New York, he and his wife, Elsie Scheel, traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they purchased a handcart and traveled by foot to Utah. During his trek, Christensen made many sketches of the American scenery and the events that happened along the journey, but it was not until the 1860s that he had the opportunity to paint again. Little about C. C. A. Christensen's first years in Utah is known. Many years passed after his arrival in 1857 before he allowed his paintings to be exhibited publicly. LDS pioneer and religious themes dominate Christensen's work. Perhaps his greatest achievement is Mormon Panorama, a monumental narrative that tells in twenty-two 8' x 12' scenes about the history of the LDS Church from Joseph Smith's vision in Palmyra, New York, to the arrival of the LDS pioneers in the Great Salt Lake Valley. To make transportation of the panorama easier, the scenes were attached in sequence as a continuous scroll on a roller, and the artist and panorama toured in Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, and Utah (1869-1890). The pioneer experience was a favorite theme of Christensen's in smaller works as well. Typical of this theme are two paintings from the 1890s: Handcart Pioneer's First View of Salt Lake Valley (1890) and Winter Quarters (1891). "C. C. A.," as he was called by historians in his later life and after his death, became a quiet but moving force in Utah's developing art history. He was one of the first artists employed to paint scenery for the Salt Lake Theater. During his life, he also worked on murals for the St. George, Manti, and Logan LDS temples. The Art CARL CHRISTIAN ANTON CHRISTENSEN aka. C. C. A. CHRISTENSEN (1831-1912) Ephraim Handcart Pioneer's First View of Salt Lake Valley, 1890 oil on canvas, 16" x 12" (40.8 x 30.5 cm) Gift from Neil and Jane Schaerrer, Salt Lake City 1982.028 After their marriage during the summer of 1857, the artist and his bride, Elsie Scheel, honeymooned on the plains as they pulled a handcart from Iowa to Salt Lake City. C.C.A., as he was called, painted at least five pieces about the handcart journeys. The last handcart company came to Utah in 1860, thirty years before Christensen painted this oil, which is the earliest known "Handcart" picture. The significance of the pioneers' trek westward was largely ignored by Utah artists for a generation after the pioneers settled in Utah. Christensen's work has a naive, or primative, quality that stems from his simple treatment of anatomy and perspective, which he learned during his early artistic training in Denmark. A genre artist by nature, his paintings, or scenes from daily life, reflect great narrative skill that earns him respect as a visual historian of his people. This oil shows the handcart pioneers climbing Little Mountain at the top of Emigration Canyon. When they approached the summit they could see their destination, Salt Lake City, for the first time. Jubilation began to sweep the company as they pushed and pulled their way up the steep mountain crest. Concepts Visual Art Core Curriculum - Utah State Office of Education Under the Standard of Making, this print can help the student: * apply the techniques of 'blocking-in' and using basic shapes to begin drawing more complicated figures and objects. * learn how to render cast shadows that fall opposite the source of light. * learn to add black or white to color to change its value. * loosely represent relative sizes of objects. * explore the technique of gradation (working from dark to light) using a variety of media (for example, charcoal creates rich, dark blacks, adding water lightens watercolor or ink washes). Under the Standard of Perceiving, this print can help the student: * identify the elements and principles the student's art may share with the painting. * point out colors in this work of art that have had black or white added to them to change their value. * use the element of value to create a focal point or center of interest by placing the lightest area next to the darkest area. Under the Standard of Expressing, this print can help the student: * identify how this artist has expressed feeling or mood through the use of line, value, color, or shape. * describe how colors, sizes of objects, basic shapes, and textures of objects within an artwork may help it convey a real or imaginary story. * create an artwork that expresses a feeling or mood using color, shapes, and/or lines. * discuss the narrative purposes artworks can have. Under the Standard of Contextualizing, this print can help the student: * identify the historical context of a painting. Strategy example: What are the people in this painting doing? How do the activities and situations of these people reflect historical events? * connect two or more cultures in the community or state with the cultures art or craft forms. * describe the connection between the materials available for two or more cultures and the kinds of art they produce.