[ B I O G R A P H Y ]

Earl Jones was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and spent his childhood and teen years in Ogden, Utah. There he attended public school and graduated from Ogden High School. In the fall of 1955, Earl moved to Salt Lake City to begin his undergraduate studies at the University of Utah where he majored in fine arts, concentrating primarily on figure painting and portraiture under the guidance of the late Alvin Gittins, then Chair of the University’s Art Department. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1959, Earl and his wife, Jill, moved to New York City where he continued his training with the late Joseph Hirsch at the Art Students League. Returning to Salt Lake City a year later, he entered the University of Utah’s Fine Arts Graduate Program and began teaching classes at the old Salt Lake Art Center located on Finch Lane.

After completing his MFA degree in 1962, Earl became a full-time faculty member of the University of Utah Art Department, where he taught painting and drawing for the next seven years. During this period, he made several experimental films with fellow faculty members, Tony Smith and the late Steven Beck, and the grants they received for film-production equipment resulted in the creation of the University’s Film Department. Leaving academia in 1970, Earl resumed teaching at the Salt Lake Art Center and began painting the Utah landscape, mainly working on location or in his home studio.