page_title: John Hafen
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: John Hafen / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: John Hafen and Walter Stringham in studio portrait by George Edward Anderson. Manti temple in the backdrop.
context_page_description: John Hafen was an American artist, primarily of landscapes and portraits. As a child, Hafen immigrated to the United States from Switzerland and settled in Utah. There, he demonstrated artistic abilities from an early age. In 1890, he was one of a group of "art missionaries" who studied at the Académie Julian in Paris under the sponsorship of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in preparation for painting murals at the nearly completed Salt Lake Temple. After returning home, Hafen painted landscapes of rural Utah and portraits of LDS General Authorities. He suffered intense financial difficulty throughout his life and did not receive much recognition as an artist until a few years before his death. He has been named "Utah's greatest artist" by Alice Merrill Horne and "is now considered the most appealing of the early Utah stylists."
context_section_description: Hafen was born on March 22, 1856 in Scherzingen, Switzerland. His parents, Johann Hafen and Anna Elizabeth Ruesi, were converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hafen began making art as a young boy, producing sketches as early as age four. When Hafen was six years old, his family immigrated to the U.S. They then traveled westward in wagons. The journey from Switzerland to Utah lasted a total of six months. The Hafens reached the Salt Lake Valley in 1862. Young John grew up in towns such as Payson and Richfield; the former was where Hafen first met future artist J. B. Fairbanks, and the two became childhood friends.
  During these years, Hafen would "draw with bits of charcoal from the fire on anything he could find." By age eight, he knew he wanted to become an artist; and "when he was eleven years old, his mother showed a bundle of his drawings to a friend who was impressed and gave John a dollar and a half to buy some colors and drawing paper. These were the first real art materials the young artist owned." He was also religious from a young age; after hearing a speech from Brigham Young, nine-year-old Hafen began to follow the Word of Wisdom. After moving around to various places in Utah, the Hafen family settled in Salt Lake City in 1868. There, he began to paint.
caption: John Hafen (left) and Walter Stringham c. 1888. Taken by George Edward Anderson
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