Biography of arnold freberg the artist of the world

Friberg was born to a Swedish father and a Norwegian mother. His family moved to Arizona when he was three years old, and he began drawing cartoons by the time he was seven. Friberg was baptized a member of the LDS Church at age eight. While in high school, Friberg learned by meeting with the artists at The Arizona Republic , and earned money by creating signs for local businesses while being apprenticed to a local sign painter.

After graduating from high school, Friberg attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, working for various local printers doing commercial art while attending school and for several years afterward. This included calendar work for the Northwest Paper Company, for whom he created paintings of Mounties. He had an offer of the rank of captain to draw recruitment posters for the United States Army Air Corps but chose instead to go to the front.

He did, however, use his art skills in combat to draw maps and such.

Arnold Göte Friberg was

He made it big creating a series of paintings depicting Western scenes for a calendar company in Friberg moved to Utah in in order to begin teaching commercial art at the University of Utah. This was partly due to having become friends with Avard Fairbanks on a previous visit to Salt Lake City and also a result of doctors recommending that Hedve move to a drier climate for her health.

When the Friberg's arrived in Utah, Arnold was asked to commemorate a centennial event by recreating on canvas the first pioneer Sunday school taught by Richard Ballantyne. Financing for taking on such a project was an obstacle, there was not enough in the budget of the magazine to cover the cost of an artist, nor would the church supply any funding.

Therefore Howells funded the project herself by selling her own land. At the time, reproductions and special editions were printed and sold however, no one knew these paintings would have so much impact that the church would decide to put them in all copies of the Book of Mormon, and also catching the eye of Hollywood scouts searching for an artist for Cecil B.