Finding Joseph

Eva and I standing
side by side 1971

It all began with a conversation. 

My second cousin Eva Öquist Åkebrand and I reconnected by email. She a Swede, living in the United Arab Emirates and I a Canadian, living in the US.  We hadn't seen each other since my visit to Sweden with Mom and Dad in about 1970.

Amongst all of our chitchatting and getting reacquainted, she mentioned that she has been collecting images of her grandfather Simeon's art and placing them in a big album. 

 
Simeon was a portrait painter of some renown. Artistic herself, it's been a labor of love for Eva to collect photos of as many of his paintings as she can locate.  I hope that she does a book of them one day with the digital images so that all the family everywhere can enjoy them as part of the family history. 


At some point I asked her if she had ever seen the portrait he had painted of Joseph Smith from a copy of his death mask that his son Selfrid had sent him. She said she had heard about it but had never seen it. 

 I had a small black and white photo of the painting that my mom had gotten from somewhere so I scanned it and emailed it to her. She was thrilled. She said it would be her ultimate dream in this project, to locate that painting and get a good color photo of it.  I think I must have taken that as a personal challenge  - I determined to find it.  Eva had invited me to come visit them in Abu Dhabi and I thought it would be so cool to surprise her with a photo of it...if I could locate it!



I had been trying to track it down for years anyway but now I got serious.  Years ago I had seen it in someones office at the Smith  building at BYU. I always thought it was a part of the BYU art collection. At Ed Week one year there was an exhibit of all the "Joseph" art that they had in the De Jong concert hall but it wasn't among the art.


A mission president that we had In Peachtree City, was a big contributor to the art collections at BYU and he gave me the name of the curator awhile ago.  Cousin Nancy  made a call to the curator for me. After checking her records she said they have no art by that painter and that back in the day, pieces of art sometimes disappeared with the professors.

Disappointing.

How could I find it?

I thought about putting out a massive Facebook request or an ad in the alumni magazine. I thought surely someone would recognize it and come forward.  I knew that Selfrid Öquist was the one responsible for having his father paint it and that he had brought it to BYU. All this time I thought he had donated it to BYU. 

I finally spoke with his daughter, Christine, to see if she had any more info. She said she would ask her dad about it but he has memory problems so it didn't seem promising.  On one of his good days she asked him about it and he was able to recall that he had his Dad paint it so that he could sell it to the Y to be able to pay his tuition. He had sold it to a professor but couldn't recall his name.  That was a great clue but how on earth would I be able to find out which one??   I was talking to Ken about it sometime later and told him what Selfrid had said.

"Oh yes, I know who that was - Professor Rich. His daughter had been in my mission."

"What?!? You knew about this all along?"

"Sure, I even had American Thanksgiving at their house one year."

Apparently he didn't know that I'd been hunting for this painting. Sheesh.

The next step was to track down some family members of this professor. Nancy was able to do that because of her old job at the BYU Alumni Association. She found the professor's son, Charles Rich, and sent me his contact info. I was leaving for UAE in a couple of weeks and sure hoped that I could find it before then. The son called me and told me that he didn't recall any such painting but that he would ask his sisters. I wasn't very hopeful. If they had the painting wouldn't everyone in the family be aware of this incredible piece??

I was packing to fly to Utah for a few days to start moving into our new house when I got an email from the son saying,

"I've located the painting. It's in my sisters house in Springville UT." 

 Holy cow, I found it!!! 

As soon as I could I drove over the home where I was thrilled to death to see this fabulous large painting of Joseph Smith to take some photos and find out it's history. 

Joseph Smith painted by Simeon Öquist

Isn't it gorgeous?

Back in the 60's Selfrid tried to sell the painting to BYU. The head of the religion department at that time was Victor Ludlow. He didn't like the painting! He said that it was historically inaccurate; that Joseph wouldn't have worn white pants,  (They aren't white, they are grey) and he would not buy it for BYU. 

Professor Rich had a reputation for helping out students in need. Selfrid approached him and Rich bought it for $800, enough to carry Selfrid through one year of school. (This was quite a lot of money in those days for a BYU professor and his wife wasn't happy.)  

According to his daughter Renee King, "He bought it and had it framed at the Springville Art Department.  After it was framed, Dad brought it home for a week, long enough for me to fall in love with it, then he took it to the religion dept. faculty room and hung it there until he retired.  I started asking him about the painting a year before he retired. One day he asked me what I would be willing to pay for it.  I told him to name his price and he would get it from me...over time. I honestly believe he didn't believe me, so he tested me and said $2000.  I told him it was a deal. It took us awhile to get it paid for, but we did it."   

Joseph hangs proudly in her home at the top of the stairs. It has been restored one time. She won't let it come off the wall even to be photographed :(  

An interesting detail to this story is this painting was painted in 1955, the year that Simeon died. 

Simeon Öquist self portrait 

The end of the story is - Eva was thrilled to get a photo of the painting for her collection. She was so surprised when I whipped it out the night I arrived in Dubai.  I hadn't even told her that I had found it! I want it to be a surprise. It was....and it was the trip of a lifetime.

Eva's book of her grandfather Simeon's artwork

In case you can read Swedish, the story above is incorrect and will be updated with this current information.  

Lorna Kyle Boot and Eva Öquist Åkebrand in Abu Dhabi UAE, March 2014