(Deseret) Alphabet Sup II

Salt Lake City. 1/5. Two archival pigment ink prints with different color schemes [76 cm x 61 cm] / [30" x 24"] Titled in pencil at lower left margins. Signed in pencil in lower right margins. 'EB' blind stamp and limitation in pencil in the lower margins at the center. Fine. Printed in an edition of five copies. Soup can label printed in the Deseret Alphabet. The label reads "Campbell's Condensed Alphabet Soup." Edward Bateman is an artist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Utah. He received his MFA from the University of Utah in 2003 and joined the faculty in 2008. His work is in the collections of (truncated) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard University, Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford University, Getty Research Institute, New York University, Columbia University, Amon Carter Museum Library, and George Eastman House, among others.

In 1853 Brigham Young directed George D. Watt, an Englishman, and an early Mormon convert, to create a new English language phonic based alphabet and using the, at the time, very popular Pitman shorthand as a framework. Watt came up with a 32 - character system, that was eventually increased to 38. The Deseret Alphabet was used throughout the Territory to help the newly arriving non-English speaking converts, the concept was never fully embraced by the Saints and was quickly abandoned after Young's death in 1877. (Inventory #: 10356)