Noel A. Carmack

NOEL A. CARMACK {[email protected]} is assistant professor of art at USU Eastern in Price, Utah. He received a BFA in illustration (1993) and an MFA in drawing/painting (1997), both from Utah State University. In addition to producing his own artwork, Carmack has done significant research on the visual art and culture of nineteenth-century Mormonism. Carmack has published on these and other topics in BYU Studies, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Utah Historical Quarterly, and the Journal of Mormon History.

Articles

Correlating Orthodoxy and Style: Institutionally “Approved” Christ-Centered Art in LDS Visual Resources and Meetinghouses, 1990–2021

Religious images have long been used in Latter-day Saint worship and instruction. Paintings, illustrations, and graphic works served a devotional function among the early Church members. Not only did the Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo use…

Of Prophets and Pale Horses: Joseph Smith, Benjamin West, and the American Millenarian Tradition

On 15 June 1844 Joseph Smith recorded in his journal that “[the steam boat] Maid of Iowa come [sic] down the river about 2 or 3 o’clock While I was examining Benj[amin] Wests painting of…

Joseph Smith, Captain Kidd Lore, and Treasure-Seeking in New York and New England during the Early Republic

In his 2003 Dialogue article, Ronald V. Huggins discussed the possibility that Joseph Smith’s ostensible encounter with the angel Moroni was the invocation of a long-held folk tradition of treasure guardians in a milieu of treasure seeking and folk magic in the northeast.Huggins concluded that “Smith must have learned of the [treasure-guardian] motif while helping his father dig for Kidd’s treasure and while studying Kidd’s life and lore as a boy.” Some Latter-day Saint scholars, however, maintain that the figure Moroni was a visiting angel, as has been represented in official LDS accounts.