Alfred Lambourne (February 2, 1850 – June 6, 1926) is an English-born American artist and author. In the 1860s, he and his family moved to the American West with the Mormon pioneers. He is best remembered for his paintings, but he also wrote short fiction for Mormon periodicals,Crocker Art Museum Store
accessed Feb. 27, 2009 and other works of musings and poetry.

Biography

Lambourne was born to William and Martha Wernham in

Chieveley Chieveley is a village and large civil parish centred north of Newbury in Berkshire, close to the M4 motorway and A34 road. Chieveley services are within the parish. Geography A map of 1877 gave the area as . The landscape is of gently ro ...

, Berkshire, England on the River Lambourn. The family emigrated to the United States when he was a child. They first settled in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

before moving to

Utah Territory The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah, the 45th state ...

.The Alfred Lambourne Pages
accessed Feb. 27, 2009 His artistic talents were encouraged by his parents from an early age. During the trip from St. Louis to

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, he kept a sketchbook of scenery along the way. After arriving in

at the age of 16, Lambourne took work as a scenic artist for the Salt Lake Theatre. In 1871, he accompanied then-

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the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ch ...

and former

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of the

Brigham Young Brigham Young (; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1847 until his death in 1877. During his time as ch ...

, to

Zion Canyon Zion Canyon (also called Little Zion, Mukuntuweap, Mu-Loon'-Tu-Weap, and Straight Cañon; ''weap'' is Paiute for canyon) is a deep and narrow gorge in southwestern Utah, United States, carved by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Nearly the entir ...

and made the first sketches of the area. In the same decade, Lambourne traveled the American West with photographer Charles Roscoe Savage, painting as Savage photographed, and explored the

Wasatch range The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the G ...

with H. L. A. Culmer, painting and naming features, and "painted a series of large canvasses representing his journey from the eastern coast of the United States to the

Golden Gate The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by t ...

" with Reuben Kirkham. He also visited Yosemite,

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and

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. Later in life, he focused more on writing, sometimes illustrating his work, eventually writing 14 books. In November, 1895, he began a year living in solitude on Great Salt Lake's remote

Gunnison Island Gunnison Island is located in the northwest quadrant of the Great Salt Lake in Box Elder County, Utah, United States , approximately northwest of Salt Lake City and about east from the lake's western shore, and is best known as an important rook ...

, where he wrote ''Our Inland Sea''. In March 1896, a group of guano sifters came to the island, and he included musings about them in the book. In early Winter of 1896, he left the island, along with the guano sifters. Lambourne died June 6, 1926, in Salt Lake City.

References

External links

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Works from the Permanent Collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lambourne, Alfred 1850 births 1926 deaths 19th-century American painters 19th-century male artists American male painters 20th-century American painters Latter Day Saints from Missouri American male writers Latter Day Saint artists Writers from Salt Lake City English emigrants to the United States Mormon pioneers English Latter Day Saints Artists from Salt Lake City People from Chieveley Latter Day Saints from Utah