‘Humble, loving’ artist created ‘Latter-day retablos’
Larry Ogan, a well-known member of Santa Fe’s art community who painted retablos of Mormon figures, died last week after a battle with cancer, his wife said Tuesday. He was 67.
Ogan was known for his paintings of Northern New Mexico and Southern Utah landscapes. After moving to Santa Fe in 1977 with his wife, he began painting what he called “Latterday retablos.”
“The question I wrestled with was why would a Mormon boy paint Catholic Saints,” Ogan wrote on his website, noting that he had always admired retablos. “Returning to the Church of my youth, I found the answer in a book full of inspiring religious icons, prophets and heroes of the Book of Mormon.”
Retablos are folk art paintings devoted to Catholic saints. But in Ogan’s case, he painted religious figures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ogan, who died Friday, was born in Clearfield, Utah, in 1948 and grew up in Roy, Utah. He attended college at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where he met his wife, Ellen Chadwick-Ogan.
“I grew up in a small community called Roy, a suburb of Ogden, Utah, where people bought their paintings at Kmart,” Ogan told The New Mexican’s
Pasatiempo magazine in a July 1999 interview. “If your son was an artist, you’d hope it was just a hobby. And there was always the question of his sexuality.”
A résumé posted on his website notes that Ogan was the director for the Santa Fe Council for the Arts, a nonprofit organization that promoted local artists until 2009. The organization is no longer in existence.
His résumé also said that after being drafted for the Vietnam War, he worked as an illustrator for the Army’s intelligence branch from 1968 to 1970.
“It wasn’t until I was drafted, in 1968, that I realized there was no way I could kill anyone. So I applied for conscientious-objector status,” he said in the 1999 interview. “I kept getting rejected and kept reapplying. In Vietnam, I refused a weapon and ended up with a job drawing cartoons for the generals’ briefings. I always say art saved my life in Vietnam.”
Among the awards Ogan received were the 1997 Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. One of his paintings hangs in the state Capitol. His works have been displayed in various galleries in Santa Fe, Española and Salt Lake City.
“He was just so humble, so hardworking and so loving,” his widow said.
A viewing is scheduled at 4 p.m. Friday, Aug. 14, at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 410 Rodeo Road. The viewing will be followed at 5 p.m. by a church service at the same location.