Born: Farrell Reuben Collett. November 13, 1907, Bennington, Idaho.
Died: March 15, 2000, St. George, Utah.
Educated: A.B., M.A., degrees in Art. Brigham Young University, 1932, 1946.
Graduate work University of Utah, 1950-1952.
Additional art study includes: California School of Fine Art, 1934; Art Institute of Chicago, 1935, 1937; American Academy of Art, Chicago, 1938; Art Center School, Los Angeles, 1948-49; Art Student League, New York City, 1955-56.
Married: Martha Howard, 9 July 1940.
Children: Michael Farrell Collett and Howard Merrill Collett.
Farrell Collett began a life-long love of art at the age of three when he could be found drawing in old ledgers the figures of Indians, horses and wildlife. In grade school, the six year old filled black boards with popular cartoon characters of the day: “Maggie and Jiggs,” “Mutt and Jeff,” and the “Katzenjammer Kids.” Rather than getting in trouble for this exuberance, he recalls that the principal patted him on the head and said, “Son, someday you’re going to be an artist.”
Collett continued his pursuit of a career in art by attending Brigham Young University where he supported himself and paid his tuition by operating a sign painting shop in Provo, Utah. His dream was to study illustration in New York City, but a temporary high school teaching job in art began for him a beloved forty-three year teaching career in high school and college. After teaching at Provo High for five years, enabling him to spend his summers in art schools at San Francisco and Chicago, he entered a competition sponsored by Walt Disney Productions where the winners would be employed to work on Disney’s animated movies. Out of 1400 artists, Collett was one of six applicants offered contracts. After two weeks of working at Disney, however, he returned to his teaching job in Provo. Teaching, to Collett, was more rewarding than just earning money, and over the many years, he would befriend many students inviting them to his home for meals and lodging.
Collett would later recall, “I knew what it was to be poor, and I always remembered the interest my teachers at Brigham Young had shown me as a student.”
In 1939, Collett established the Art department at Weber College in Ogden, Utah. For the next thirty-seven years, with two notable absences, he continued to teach there. During this time, while the college went from a two-year to a four-year institution, Collett created a curriculum emphasizing illustration.
In 1940, Collett met and married Martha “Martie” Howard. Soon afterwards, Collett joined the U. S. Navy where he became a lieutenant commander on a minesweeper. In 1955, he, Martie and their two young sons moved to New York City where Collett worked as an illustrator for two years.
They returned to Utah in 1957, however, and Collett resumed his teaching career at Weber. He had proven to himself that he could “make the grade in the New York art market,” but his love for Utah and teaching was what was truly important to him. In 1966, Martie Collett joined the Weber faculty as well, where she was Professor of Library Science and creator of the Howell Library and Special Collections department.
Collett retired from Weber State as Professor Emeritus of Art in 1976. A year later Weber State awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities. Prior to that time he had received the Alumni Association’s Henry Aldous Dixon award. In May, 1982, Collett was again honored by the institution when it named the art building after him.
Farrell and Martie moved to St. George, Utah in 1986. This retirement living in spectacular Southern Utah has allowed Collett to paint full-time continually, taking on commissions and assignments. He sketches constantly, whether he is traveling locally or overseas as he and Martie did to Great Britain and Spain in 1969. He has also exhibited his work in numerous state and national shows, and he has received many awards and honors, one of the most notable being the UK Festival 1996 Distinguished Utah tribute.
Throughout his productive years, full of achievement and service to others, Farrell Collett has retained the sense of childlike joy and wonder of the world around him which is reflected in his images of wildlife and people. In every work of art Collett creates, he transfers this remarkable spirit to the world as his gift for a long and happy life.