John Hafen

John Hafen
Born	22 March 1856 Scherzingen, Switzerland
Died	3 June 1910 Indianapolis, Indiana
Occupation	Artist
Years active	1881-1910
Organization(s)	Society of Utah Artists Utah Art Association
Notable work	Girl Among the Hollyhocks
Style	Impressionism
Spouse	Thora Twede (m. 1879)
Children	10 J. Leo Hafen
Parent(s)	Johann Hafen Anna Elizabeth Ruesi
Awards	Utah Art Institute Exhibition Prize, 1893 and 1903 Utah Art Institute Medal of Honor

John Hafen (March 22, 1856 – June 3, 1910) was a Swiss-born American artist, primarily of landscapes and portraits.

As a child, Hafen immigrated to the United States from Switzerland and settled in Utah. There, he demonstrated artistic abilities from an early age. In 1890, he was one of a group of "art missionaries" who studied at the Académie Julian in Paris under the sponsorship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), in preparation for painting murals at the nearly completed Salt Lake Temple. After returning home, Hafen painted landscapes of rural Utah and portraits of LDS General Authorities. He suffered intense financial difficulty throughout his life and did not receive much recognition as an artist until a few years before his death. He has been named "Utah's greatest artist" by Alice Merrill Horne and "is now considered the most appealing of the early Utah stylists."^[1]