Arnold Friberg’s first assignment on the film The Ten Commandments was creating the art for the Egyptian and Hebrew clothing for the principle male stars. Friberg’s artistic designs played a crucial role in the telling of the story.

For example, in the scene of Pharaoh’s court in which rods are turned into serpents, Friberg wanted to set Moses apart from the Egyptians, who traditionally wore light-colored clothing. The artist decided to have a strongly contrasting robe for Moses to wear during his return from exile in Midian to seek the freedom of his people from bondage. The greatest contrast seemed to be a robe of red design, to which Friberg added black and white stripes that would be women into the fabric.

The entire robe was created, using Friberg’s costume painting as model, from goat’s hair, the cloth woven on looms identical in design to those used in ancient times. Although the artist did not realize it at the time, by almost miraculous coincidence the colors he used were the exact colors of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of Moses’ parents, according to the Bible. Thus, an added dimension of authenticity was present, and the garment from then on was called “the great Levite robe.”

Mormons David Archuleta and Julianna Hough are two LDS artists who are finding big success with mainstream audiences. Archuleta’s song Crush debuted #2 on the Billboard charts and Hough recently was a headliner at the Republican National Convention. Both artists are from Utah and found success after going to Hollywood.

LDS artist Arnold Friberg also found success by going to Hollywood when movie director Cecil B. Demille asked the artist to create paintings for a new film The Ten Commandments. When the director called Friberg he was in the middle of the working on scenes from The Book of Mormon that an LDS church owned magazine, The Children’s Friend, commissioned.

The paintings Friberg created for the movie were used as a marketing tool and were taken on tour around the World. More than one million people viewed the exhibit. The art was also republished as a calendar and sold thousands of copies.

A new LDS artist coming onto the scene is Mark Mabry. Unlike Mormon artist Arnold Friberg, who uses a paint brush, Mabry uses photographer to create his art.

The is exhibit is called Reflections of Christ and has been at the LDS visitors center in Mesa, Arizona for the past nine months or so. Like Friberg, Mabry is from Phoenix and got his start doing commercial work.

The traveling exhibit is in the Boise State student Union builder September 8th-14th. Then for the Mormon church’s general conference it will come to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Although the photos were not commissioned by the Mormon church, a book is being published under the LDS owned publishing company Deseret Book.

I’m sure the exhibit will come under great scrutiny from many members of the Mormon church and other Christian churches just like when Arnold Friberg’s picture of The Book of Mormon caused controversy. But I believe that this revolutionary art will play an important role in teaching people that Mormons are Christians.

In 1949 the University of Utah wanted to establish a commercial art training program with Arnold Friberg acting as a lecturer. At the time Friberg lived in San Francisco where he had numerous clients. But the artists wife, Hedve, was becoming more ill each day from the ocean air so the move to Utah’s dry climate seemed ideal. Salt Lake City was also the head quarters for the Mormon church.

To save Friberg’s class from cancelation the committed students recruited people to ensure the minimum number of students necessary. By the fall semester, the serious art students eliminated the problems after more students recognized they could receive the training they desired from Friberg.

When Arnold Friberg entered World War II it was an ideal time for survival. By the time the artist had finished his training, German air superiority had been destroyed. Friberg was sent into combat in Germany, but the violence was no longer as intense as during the early months of the war.

Friberg was one of many artists who were overlooked by the topographic engineers who searched for soldiers with artistic skills. The army at that time was not sophisticated in its approach to assigning men to active duty. Friberg did get sent to silk-screen school in Texas. Each division was required to have one artistic man who could understand the silk-screen process for printing signs used during maneuvers. Friberg was already experienced in the processes so for him the week of training in Texas was pleasant.

Friberg only used the training once and it wasn’t for combat. The artist used his skills to for a party where he painted a regimental insignia for a gift.

Arnold Friberg’s is a devout Mormon and he took on the task of painting scenes from the LDS scriptures The Book of Mormon in the 1950s. Members of the Mormon church believe The Book of Mormon to be the word of God just like mainstream Christians believe the Bible to be the word of God.

Arnold Friberg’s task with The Book of Mormon was no different. No artist had ever attempted to paint scenes from the LDS scriptures. The Mormon church commissioned the paintings and therefore retained control over Friberg’s creative power.

Arnold Friberg was always concerned with accuracy. The artist was afraid that after returning home from London to finish Prince Charles portrait it would be to late to change anything that was inaccurate. So Friberg decided he needed to make wax impressions of the Prince’s uniform.

Concerned that a rule might prevent the artist from creating wax impressions he decided not to ask permission and just did it. All the while Friberg felt nervous about the possible consequences. In th e end it paid off because the prince liked the portrait.

Arnold Friberg traveled to London to paint a portrait of the Prince Charles. The prince was not particularly enthusiastic about posing for his portrait. he told Friberg, “This is not one of my favorite chores.” The artists and his royal subject did enjoy each other’s company, and there was a mutual respect between them. They also discovered a minor cultural gap that enabled Friberg to delight the prince with such old jokes as, “Why does a fireman wear read suspenders?” (To keep his pants up)

One of Arnold Friberg’s amazing adventure took place when he went to London to paint a portrait of Prince Charles. It was a great honor for an artist to be picked to create such a piece of artwork. Palace officials prepared a large painting room overlooking the gate and courtyard where the Changing of the Guard took place each day, the Victoria fountain, and the Male, a tree-lined road through St. James Park.

Friberg’s new art room contained massive easels built during the Victorian era, and there was canvas spread on the floor to protect the rich carpeting from paint stains. The walls were covered with hand-painted floral designs and a massive marble and gold fireplace was on one side of the room. There were fold mandarin figures and a gold dragon decorating the fireplace, while a large ornate chandelier hung overhead.

There is more to Arnold Friberg’s range or work than just his paintings and drawings. He became interested in the art form of sculpting. His first subject in this three-dimensional art form was to create a horse and rider that was cast in bronze through the lost wax process.

Sculpting is not really any great change in direction for Friberg. “if you understand the form well enough to draw it,” he claims, “you can model it; I don’t see why people are surprised that an artist can do both.”