Torlief Knaphus

“In Gratitude I recognize that there has been a light greater than mine to guide me, and a hand stronger and richer than mine to guide and protect me.”

Torlief Knaphus

Birth and Early Life

Torleif Knaphus was born in Vats, Rogaland, Norway on 14 December of 1881. His father was Lars Larsen. His mother was Liva Sakariassen Alfseike Knaphus.

As early as age 5, Torleif showed his creative side by carving birds and human heads from pieces of wood and also sketched scenes of nature as he watched over the family sheep.^[1]
Alder, Tom, “Alder’s Accounts, Torleif S. Knaphus,” 15 Bytes, Artists of Utah ezine, February 2009. Noticing her son’s interest in art, his mother purchased him a sketchbook, which he then began to fill with landscapes.

Torleif took out an apprenticeship at age 14 in a paint and decorating shop in Haugesund.

At 17 he went to sea for a year. The picturesque sunrises, sunsets, the night stars, and the Northern lights further convinced him of his love of all things beautiful,^[2]Alder, Tom, “Alder’s Accounts, Torleif S. Knaphus,” 15 Bytes, Artists of Utah ezine, February 2009. and upon returning home he completed his painting and decorating apprenticeship, earned his master’s slip, and opened his own shop.

Education

Torleif traveled to Kristiania Norway (modern day Oslo) to further pursue formal studies in art at the age of 19.^[3] Alder, Tom, “Alder’s Accounts, Torleif S. Knaphus,” 15 Bytes, Artists of Utah ezine, February 2009. ] While there he studied at the Harriet Backer Art School in Oslo. He learned sculpting from Lars Utne, at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry, at the Académie Julian in Paris and the Art Students league in New York.

Conversion

While there one of his roommates persuaded him to attend a Latter-day Musical Concert through the expediency of pinning him to the ground and refusing to let him up until he agreed to go.^[4]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980 Of the experience he said “It was easy for me to see and understand that this was the only true Church of God.”^[5]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980] Knaphus joined the Church in February of 1902 after a hole was chopped through 2 inches of ice in a frozen over lake. He would turn down the opportunity to attend art school in Rome in order to immigrate to Utah in 1906.^[6]White, Doris “Torleif Knaphus, Mormon Artist and Genealogist,” History of Mormonism, 28

His first jobs for the Church were painting in the Tabernacle and in the Salt Lake Temple.^[7]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980

By 1909, the year he met and married Emilia Helena Christensen in the Salt Lake Temple, he was also sculpting Busts of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young for the Church.^[8]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980

Torleif and his brother Andrew, his only other family member to join the Church, started a painting company in Sanpete County, Utah. However in 1912 Andrew was called to serve a mission in Europe. Their company broke up, and Torlief accompanied his brother to Europe to study at the Julian Academy in Paris. His plan was to spend the rest of his life doing art and sculpture for the Church.^[9]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980 Due to the outbreak of World War I, his studying was cut short. [x] Returning to the states he spent six months studying at the Student Art’s League in New York.^[10]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980

Work for the Church

Laie Hawaii (1916-1918)

True to his hope, upon returning to the States, Torleif got his wish to work for the Church. Along with A.B. Wright, LeConte Stewart, J. Leo Fairbanks, and Avard Fairbanks, Torlief was hired to spend just over a year working on the Laie Hawaii Temple. ^[11]Alder, Tom, “Alder’s Accounts, Torleif S. Knaphus,” 15 Bytes, Artists of Utah ezine, February 2009. ^[12]Albright, Mark, “Torleif Knaphus-Norweigan Sculptor & Artist-1881-1965,” Godpellineart.org

He did some work on the interior and is credited with Helping Avard Fairbanks with the Baptismal font oxen, designed by the Temple architects Pope and Burton. ^[13]Alder, Tom, “Alder’s Accounts, Torleif S. Knaphus,” 15 Bytes, Artists of Utah ezine, February 2009.

Cardston Alberta (1920-1923)

He was next contracted by the Church to spend just over two years working on the Cardston Alberta Temple.^[14]Albright, Mark, “Torleif Knaphus-Norweigan Sculptor & Artist-1881-1965,” Godpellineart.org For this job he would sculpt the oxen in baptistery. He would later judge this to be his favorite font creation.^[15]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980 Later, once the Temple exterior was finished he returned to Cardston to sculpt a freize and fountain for the exterior entryway titled, “Christ the Fountainhead.” ^[16]Alder, Tom, “Alder’s Accounts, Torleif S. Knaphus,” 15 Bytes, Artists of Utah ezine, February 2009. ^[17]Albright, Mark, “Torleif Knaphus-Norweigan Sculptor & Artist-1881-1965,” Godpellineart.org^[18] Subject file, Alberta Temple, Church Hist. Dept. ^[19] Young Women’s Journal, Feb. 1928, p. 145.

The Freize remained part of the steps leading up to the temple doors until the 1992 remodel of the Temple. The expansion added a new entryway with waiting areas and bathrooms, and encompassed the frieze, incorporating it, and a new fountain, into the entryway of the temple. Copies of the frieze can be found in the waiting room at the meetinghouse Provo Utah Temple, on the exterior of the Edgehill Ward Building in Sugarhouse Utah, as well as Chapels in Tremonton, Belvedere, Rose Park, Yale, Las Vegas, and Wittier among others throughout the world.^[20]Albright, Mark, “Torleif Knaphus-Norweigan Sculptor & Artist-1881-1965,” Godpellineart.org^[21] Wikipedia, “Torlief Knaphus.”

Mesa Arizona (1925-1927)

For the Arizona Temple, Torlief spent two years sculpting for the Mesa Arizona temple. He sculpted the 12 oxen for the font, which were then baked in clay for a terra-cotta finish.

On the outside of the temple, Torleif sculpted 8 large terracotta friezes that run around the outside of the upper portion of the building. These friezes were formed first in plaster-of paris from sketches created by A. B. Wright. The plaster models were then cast in Terra-cotta by a firm in California.^[22]
Arizona Temple, Church Hist. Dept.; J. W. Lesueur, “The Arizona Temple,” Improvement Era, Oct. 1927, p. 1062. The 8 panels depict the gathering of Israel to the Rocky Mountains. Portrayed are French and Italian peasants, some in climbing togs after descending the Alps; a wife pleading with her husband to join her; people in Holland preparing to board ship; an Englishman, some Welsh and Irish, and a Scotsman arriving in America; various people in their national dress crossing the plains; and Mexicans, Spanish-Americans, Indians, and Polynesians traveling to Zion.^[23]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980

Hill Cumorah Monument 1929-1935

The Hill Cumorah Monument was Torleif Knaphus’s idea, based upon his great love and testimony of the restoration. He spent over five years on the design and sculpting of this monument. (Further details in a later chapter)

Washington D.C. Meetinghouse Angel Moroni (1932-1933)

In concurrence with the creation of the Angel Moroni Monument for Palmyra, Torlief also sculpted the Angel Moroni for the spire of the Washington D. C. Chapel. This statue can now be seen in the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City.^[24]Albright, Mark, “Torleif Knaphus-Norweigan Sculptor & Artist-1881-1965,” Godpellineart.org

During the time of sculpting the D.C. Moroni and the Cumorah monument, his wife died, leaving him the lone father of eight children.^[25]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980

He raised his children as a single Father for eight years. In 1940, at the age of fifty-eight, he married twenty-three-year-old Rebecca Marie Jacobson. She not only helped him raise his children, and bore him six more.^[26]Hartley, William G., “Torleif S. Knaphus, Sculptor Saint,” Ensign, July 1980

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