Joseph Smith and Early Church Leaders
One of the most popular paintings Ken has ever painted in this portrait of Jospeh Smith and his brother Hyrum together. As a descendant of Hyrum Smith, Ken was asked to create this painting by his father. The two brother sealed their testimonies of the Lord’s restored work as matrys on June 27th, 1844. “In life they were not divided, in death they were not separated.” D&C 135:3
Patrick Bishop has done extensive research to locate original photographs of early church leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. As he was looking for photographs in the Library of Congress he came across a daguerreotype of an unknown person who fits the physical descriptions of Oliver Cowdery. The time and place of the photograph made this a plausible match. Based on this image and Patrick Bishop’s research, Ken was commissioned by the Mormon Historical Sites Foundation to paint a portrait of Oliver Cowdery for the Oliver Cowdery commemorative event. The painting is now housed in the new LDS Church History Library.
Patrick Bishop went on to research an old daguerreotype donated to the Community Church of Christ by the Scannel family in 1965. He was joined in this research by Mark Moore and Michael Terry. The daguerreotype is believed to be an image of the prophet Joseph Smith. Their work is very convincing and is fully documented in the book Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again.
Again Ken was commissioned to paint a portrait based on this image. The is an explanation of the original daguerreotype in this You Tube video.
