Archives West Finding Aid

George M. Ottinger (1833-1917) was born on 8 February 1833, in Springfield Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. At the age of seventeen he signed on as a sailor and spent the next three years, first, on a whaler, and then on various freighters. Back on land, he began tinting photographs which brought him into association with many artists who helped improve his technique and eye for color. On 7 June 1858 Ottinger was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ottinger and his mother set out for Salt Lake City in April 1861 and arrived in September 1861, after two months of preparation and four months of travel. He married Mary Jane McAllister Cullen on 9 January 1862, but Mary died 7 December 1862, after the birth of a son, William, in November. On 3 December 1864, Ottinger and Phoebe Nelson were married by Heber C. Kimball, and they raised a family of six children. In partnership with C. R. Savage, a photographer, Ottinger tinted photographs at a studio in Park City, where the miners had the money to spend on them. In company with Savage, Ottinger visited England in 1879, as a church missionary, to learn more about art technique. Ottinger was actively engaged in other art pursuits in Utah. He helped found the Deseret Academy of Arts in 1863, the Deseret Art Union in 1865, and the Salt Lake (Utah) Art Association in 1881. Partly because of professional jealousy, none of these groups were particularly long-lived. He was also a professor of drawing at the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah) from 1882 to 1892. In 1877 he made a cast of Brigham Young's hand as well as a death-mask and anatomical measurements. In 1866 Ottinger was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Nauvoo Legion of Salt Lake, after joining, in 1862, as a high private. Under Territorial-governor West, Ottinger held the unpaid rank of Adjutant General, to help organize the Utah National Guard. Ottinger was active in the volunteer fire company, and its organization. Appointed Chief Engineer of the paid department in 1876, he proceeded to reorganize the system. On 1 March 1879 the city council appointed him Chief Engineer of the Fire Department and Superintendent of the Water Works, at a salary of $900 per year; he held this position until 1890. Ottinger continued painting and teaching in Salt Lake City as well as giving occasional art lectures to church and civic groups. Ottinger did not feel his work was given the recognition it deserved, even though he won many awards and a few of his pictures were nationally exhibited. Ottinger died on 29 October 1917, at his home in Salt Lake City.