Henry Bigler was a common man who secured a place in history by accurately dating the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California. M. Guy Bishop provides a detailed look at his simple life.

GARY JAMES BERGERA / Hardback. 352 pages. 1-56085-164-3 / $25.95

Obadiah Pratt (1742-1779) was born at Saybrook, Middlesex County, Connecticut, the son of Christoper Pratt and Sarah Pratt. Obadiah married Jemima Tolls (1754-1812), and had 11 children: Jared, Barnabas, Samuel, Rhoda, William, Sarah, Obadiah, Lovina, Ira, Ellen, and Allen. They moved from Saybrook, Connecticut to New Lebanon, in Columbia County, New York, before the American Colonies signed the Declaration of Independence. Obadiah was a member of the New York Militia in the Revolutionary War. Later they moved to Washington in Dutchess County, where he was a farmer, tanner and currier.

Addison Pratt (1802-1872) was born at Winchester, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, the son of Henry and Rebekah Jewell Pratt. He married Louisa Barnes in 1831 at Durham, Ontario. They settled at Ripley, New York and had four daughters. Addison and Louisa joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1838. They migrated west and settled at Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1841. He was called on a mission to the Society Island by Joseph Smith in 1843. Addison Pratt began his journals at New Bedford, Massachusetts in October 1843, while he was otaining passage to the South Seas. While in political confinement on Tahiti in 1850, he wrote his memoirs, recounting his youth and whaling to 1829. The journals close at the end of his second mission to French Polynesia in May 1852. He died at Anaheim, California.

Utah Art, Utah Artists surveys 150 years of the extraordinary talent and achievements of Utah artists. This overview ranges from the sublime paintings of a resourceful ranching woman to the polished work of artists trained in Paris, Rome, and New York. It highlights the rural and the cosmopolitan, the traditional and the modern, the concrete and the transcendent that encompass Utah art. This sweeping exhibition showcases 300 works of art by 220 artists painstakingly compiled from a list of 10,000 Utah artists. Selection was made in light of five considerations: quality of the work; critical acclaim and professional success of the artist; belated but deserved recognition of the artist; young emerging artists who are the future of art in Utah; and a representative sampling of periods, styles, mediums and geographic regions of the state. One hundred twenty of the artworks are reproduced in rich color, most illustrated for the first time. Selected works and biographical material on the artists are presented chronologically, providing a perspective on Utah art that will make this volume an essential reference for collectors, scholars, and enthusiasts of Utah art. Vern G. Swanson, Ph.D., has been the director of the Springville Museum of Art since 1980. He has written numerous books and articles and he is coauthor with Drs. R. S. Olpin and W. C. Seifrit of Utah Art, Utah Painting and Sculpture, and Utah Arts. Robert S. Olpin, Ph.D., a University of Utah Professor of Art History, has become a familiar face on his eighteen-part television course on the Art Life in Utah series. He has acted as a consultant to such organizations as the National Gallery and Vose Galleries. Donna L. Poulton, Ph.D., is the Assistant Curator of Exhibitions at the Springville Museum if Art. For the past three years she has been documenting and chronicling, on film, the lives and works of Utah artists. Janie L. Rogers, M.A., wrote her master's thesis on Utah architecture. Rogers is a founding member of the Associated Art Historians, Inc., Salt Lake City.

Orson Pratt (1811-1881) was born in Hartford, New York to Jared Pratt and Charity Dickinson. He, along with several other members of his family, were early members of the LDS Church. In 1835 Orson and his brother, Parley P. Pratt, were called to be apostles in the LDS Church. Orson practiced plural marriage and was the father of a number of children. He was the first to publicly announce the Momron doctrine of the plurality of wives. He died in Salt Lake City in 1881.

After Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt was the most influential figure in early Mormon history and culture. Missionary, pamphleteer, theologian, historian, and martyr, Pratt was perennially stalked by controversy--regarded, he said, "almost as an Angel by thousands and counted an Imposter by tens of thousands."Tracing the life of this colorful figure from his hardscrabble origins in upstate New York to his murder in 1857, Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow explore the crucial role Pratt played in the formation and expansion of early Mormonism. One of countless ministers inspired by the antebellum revival movement known as the Second Great Awakening, Pratt joined the Mormons in 1830 at the age of twenty three and five years later became a member of the newly formed Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which vaulted him to the forefront of church leadership for the rest of his life. Pratt's missionary work--reaching from Canada to England, from Chile to California--won hundreds of followers, but even more important were his voluminous writings. Through books, newspaper articles, pamphlets, poetry, fiction, and autobiography, Pratt spread the Latter-day Saint message, battled the many who reviled it, and delineated its theology in ways that still shape Mormon thought.Drawing on letters, journals, and other rich archival sources, Givens and Grow examine not only Pratt's writings but also his complex personal life. A polygamist who married a dozen times and fathered thirty children, Pratt took immense joy in his family circle even as his devotion to Mormonism led to long absences that put heavy strains on those he loved. It was during one such absence, a mission trip to the East, that the estranged husband of his twelfth wife shot and killed him--a shocking conclusion to a life that never lacked in drama.