LaVar Wallgren
LaVar Wallgren in not as well known as other sculptors of Angel Moroni statues that adorn many temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he is the creator of the fiberglass statue that originally adorned the Monticello Utah Temple.
Wallgren was born on August 13, 1932, in Midvale, Utah. He was artistic as a child and was largely self-taught.
He was drafted into the Korean War and served in Japan. After his service concluded, he went to work in the construction industry. However, he had an inkling that he would work in the boat industry at some point, constructing fiberglass vessels. That transition came after he had rheumatic fever and his doctor told him to switch careers.
Artist Karl Quilter approached him about collaborating on casting sculptures in fiberglass. Some of their first projects included the new tower spires for the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, which were replicas of the original wood ones.
- Wallgren and Quilter did all their work together under a single roof. Karl would sculpt the statues in clay on site, LaVar would build seams into the statue for the mold. The mold would be created, and the fiberglass resin pieces were cast. The pieces were sandblasted and assembled. All was done onsite, unlike previous sculptors, who would send their molds cross country to a foundry to be cast.
Another early project Quilter and Wallgren worked on at Wallgren’s Studios were the white spires seen on each of the “standard plan” temples built in the 1980s that had the 6 detached towers with white spires atop them.
Wallgren assisted Quilter on a angel Moroni design that now adorns numerous temples.
- The Church commissioned LaVar Wallgren to sculpt a new Angel Moroni statue for the series of small locally supported temples patterned after the Monticello Utah Temple. It is fiberglass, is 5 ft. 11 in. tall, weighs about 250 lbs. and includes a scroll held in Moroni’s left hand. The Church first used it on the Monticello Utah Temple, the first temple in that series. When first installed they did not cover it in gold leaf but finished it in white enamel. The white statue proved too difficult to see against a cloudy sky, so the Church removed it.[1]
LaVar and a business partner James Dell Morris recreated the carved stone needed for the reconstruction of the new Nauvoo Illinois Temple. Wallgren and Morris then recreated the needed stones in fiberglass, creating a pattern for each carving. The patterns were then shipped to the stone quarry. At the quarry, the patterns were laser scanned, and a CNC machine was used to remove most of the stone for the new carved pieces. After the rough machining, the rest of the stone was shaped and removed by skilled craftsmen. They also created new fiberglass patterns for the moonstones and star stones. For the oxen in the baptistry, they used a pair of oxen from the This Is the Place Heritage Park.[2]
Wallgren died on February 1, 2004. He and his wife, Donna, had five children.
