Philip Barkdull, a modernist painter, was born in Hatton, Utah in 1888.  He was an art educator and neoimpressionist painter in the style of Birger Sandźen.  He died in Logan, Utah in 1968.

Barkdull began his education at Brigham Young High School at the late age of 23.  He later held many short-term teaching positions in secondary schools in southern Utah. Barkdull continued with his art education at Brigham Young University and graduated in 1928 when he was 40.   After graduation, Barkdull taught at a local high school for two years.  He was appointed art instructor at BYU for the 1929 academic year. He began a 34-year career in the Logan school district as director of arts and crafts and part-time instructor after leaving BYU.  Barkdull made his greatest contribution to Utah art as an educator.

During the summers of 1927 and 1928, Barkdull attended summer classes at Brigham Young University and at Utah State Agricultural College where he met Birger Sandźen, the Kansas painter who had the greatest influence on his vision and painting. Sandźen’s neoimpressionist technique with raw color and regionalist subject matter influenced Barkdull. His painting Designed Landscape: Symphony in Color (1930) clearly demonstrates Sandźen’s influence.  Although Barkdull’s work was not well received by his Utah audience, the criticism he received from New York galleries was favorable.

Biographical information on this page was adapted from the Springville Museum of Art.