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  Business Card of William Warner Major with his signature 

In England William Warner Major was a miniaturist,  an artist who painted photograph-sized portraits.  While growing up in London, he idolized great artists, such as Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788 ) and Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)  and tried to imitate their styles.  Then he and his sister and brother met the Mormon missionaries and all three families were baptized within a week of each other.  Thus started a journey from London to Nauvoo to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, to the Great Salt Lake Valley and back to London where Major died serving his 3rd mission.

Nine days after his death, William Warner Major’s missionary companions, William Henry Kimball and James Marsden, wrote a one page history of their friend (Marsden/Kimball History of William Warner Major). This valuable resource has been reworded, reworked, and published numerous times (Articles that mention W.W. Major ). There has been little new information about Utah’s first professional artist in over 150 years. Research has produced a 3-page journal and five letters written by Major. There are also notes of a speech about manners delivered by this cultured London emigrant to his unrefined Western friends while camping out in the wilds of Nebraska. Because Major was a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in England and America, his activities were recorded in the London Conference Records and the Journal History. Furthermore, since Major associated, labored, nurtured, served, and sketched portraits of numerous pioneers, his endeavors were noted in their personal journals and diaries. From these mineable sources emerge the story of a colorful, devoted, talented leader and his faithful, adventurous wife, Sarah Coles Major.  

                            Church Leader

William Warner Major and Sarah Coles Major joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1842. Until his death, Major occupied leadership positions. He sat in the "Presidency of Elders of London Branch" with William Lewzy, the man who baptized him. Major served three missions:  two in the London area and one in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. In Winter Quarter's Nebraska he was called to the Municipal High Council.  Later, he was a member of the Great Salt Lake High Council.

Official Artist for LDS Church 

After he arrived in Nauvoo in 1845, he functioned as an official artist for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Major’s paintings are prolific and diverse. From 1845 to 1846 Major was commissioned and paid through temple funds to paint portraits of Church leaders to be hung in the Nauvoo Temple. Working with other artists in Nauvoo, Major helped complete two large historic panoramas. Indian Chiefs living in Nebraska and the Utah Territory stood silently in front of his scrutinizing gaze and talented hand. Crying babies, squirming children, proud mothers and fathers, elderly matriarchs and patriarchs posed for portraits by the British professional. He also sketched the scenery while crossing the plains, and later, he was assigned the duty of artist on an 1852 exploration trip to Southern Utah with Brigham Young.