PIERCY, FREDERICK (1830-1891)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
"Portrait Of A Woman" (1875)
pencil & chalk
cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Piercy was born in Hampshire, England, the eighth of nine children. At age 18, he was baptized as a Mormon and subsequently advanced in the church's priesthood. In 1849, after being ordained a priest, he was made secretary of the LDS London Conference in 1849 and 1850. Piercy married Angelina Hawkins on September 15, 1849. They had eleven children. What formal training in art Piercy may have received in his youth is not known. As an artist, Piercy specialized in portraits as well as land- scapes, and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. Having impressed with several commissions within the LDS church, his artistic talents were immediately put to missionary use. In order to advertise and promote the expansion of the LDS Church, Piercy was sent to America to track and illustrate the emigration route of the church from Liverpool, England across the Atlantic towards it's central outpost in Salt Lake City, the Mormon Trail.
 
Piercy's modest place in history rests on his forty-five drawings which originally appeared in 1855 in his book, Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley, Illustrated, (Illustrated Route). These drawings are an important part of the pictorial record of America's westward expansion in the mid-nineteenth century before the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The sketches depicted covered wagons travelling across rugged, untamed landscapes of Iowa, Wyoming & Utah, along the Mississippi River.
 
Yet, little has been known of Piercy aside from the six-month period recorded in his journal during his trip to Utah in 1853, the trip on which he made his historical sketches. This journal was published with his pictures on his return to England and is the best available insight into Piercy's personal qualities and interests. Whilst stationed at Nauvoo Mansion (home of the Smith Family), he was commissioned to complete portraits of several major figures of the LDS Church, including current leader, Brigham Young, Lucy Mack Smith (1775-1856) (mother of the late Joseph Smith Jr.), & his sons, David (1844-1904) & Joseph Smith III (1832-1914). He also created a Self Portrait scene of himself at Carthage Jail, where the late prophet, Joseph Smith Jr (1805-1844), the founder & leader of Mormonism, had been murdered by a mob several years prior. At the time, Piercy's sister, Syrina Biggs, also lived in the new settlement with her new family.
 
A little more of Piercy's life story can be pieced together from references found in the diaries and letters of his Mormon contemporaries. Most of this information concerns the period of his life from his eighteenth year, when he joined the Mormon church, until he was "cut off" or excommunicated from the church in 1857 for declining Brigham Young's request that he emigrate to Utah.
 
After Piercy's return to England early in 1854, the scope of the project grew beyond the original plan. The collection of pictures was greater than intended, and Piercy's portraits of members of Joseph Smith's family and of Brigham Young led to the inclusion of portraits of other Mormon leaders taken from daguerreotypes. Along with his landscape sketches, the finished volumes became a magnificently illustrated travel guide to help gather the Mormon faithful of Europe to the mountain valleys of Utah. Since their original publication in the Illustrated Route, Piercy's pictures have been used in many histories of the American West, especially accounts of the Mormon pioneering epic. 
 
Following Piercy's excommunication from the LDS Church in 1857, he was filled with bitterness, and fought with Brigham Young over the sale of the plates he produced for the Illustrated Route to the LDS Church (it was eventually settled). In retaliation, Young ordered a stop to Mormon emigration from England, and requested all American missionaries return. Piercy relocated to Portsmouth, then London, where he lived next to the National Gallery. His output dwindled, and he seldom exhibited apart from a few times at the Royal Academy & Suffolk Art Gallery. His wife, Angelina, passed away in 1881. He remarried to artist, Catherine Wornum, daughter of a former National Gallery curator. He died in 1891 in London, having suffered paralysis for a decade.
 
The historic value of Piercy's drawings has been further enhanced by the unfortunate loss over the years of similar paintings by other artists of this period. His original sketches are now extremely rare. Those that remain are represented in major institutions, such as the Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Missouri State Historical Society.