Elspeth Young: Mormon Artist
Elspeth Young is an artist best known for her paintings of women in the Bible. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As a child, Young’s parents gave her the choice between art lessons and dancing lessons. She chose to study under her father, artist Al R. Young. She earned her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in visual arts from Brigham Young University in 2003. Since her graduation, she has been associated with her father’s studio, Al Young Studios. The Women of the Bible Fine Art Collection is one of the studio’s primary creative projects. Fifteen of Elspeth Young’s paintings were included in Women of the Old Testament by Camille Fronk Olson (2009). Young had attended a 2002 lecture by Olson when she encouraged artists to depict the lesser-known women in the scriptures. Olson published a companion volume, Women in the New Testament, in 2014 and twenty-one additional paintings from Young appear in that volume. She collaborates with her father on a series of paintings featuring heroes of the Book of Mormon and pioneers of the American West. She contributes to other studio work, such as The Storybook Home Journal, a bimonthly magazine for which she also proofreads, writes articles, designs, and provides photos, music, crafts, and other projects.
She has contributed to My Father’s Captivity and The Papers of Seymore Wainscott. Young’s work has also been featured in publications of the Church of Jesus Christ and is privately collected. Young took a photography class from BYU photographer Mark Philbrick and photographs her models for her paintings.
Young has two paintings exhibited in the Payson Utah Temple. “Blessed, Honored Pioneer,” hung by the bride’s room, is a painting of Lucinda Pace, who founded the city of Payson with her husband. “And Thou Didst Hear Me,” which is a painting of Jane Elizabeth Manning James, a Latter-day Saint convert of African lineage, appears in the sealing waiting room. The painting also appears in the Ogden Utah Temple. For ten years, Young searched for a model to represent Manning. She finally found her model: the granddaughter of the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ in Ghana.
New art in the renovated Washington D.C. Temple includes portraits by Young: "With a Sincere Heart," "The Pure in Heart," and "He Restoreth My Soul," depict an Asian woman, a Filipino woman, and a Mestizo woman, respectively, which represents the global membership of the Church of Jesus Christ. She also created "The Blessings of the Fathers," which depicts a Black father exercising his priesthood.
Young lives in Orem in her family home.
