Friends and museums alike tend to describe Utah watercolor painter H. Francis Sellers' personality before his paintings. He was a legendary figure who friends described as fun-loving, irreverent, and larger-than-life. Born in Rock Springs, Wyoming in 1937, Sellers studied art at Brigham Young University. He was a watercolor painter with a traditional style, but he wasn't necessarily interested in traditional subject matter. While he started out painting large works, he ended up painting almost exclusively miniatures- a creative evolution born of pragmatism. Sellers wrote: "when I painted large, often I would do a thumbnail sketch. Some would be very interesting. I began to apply paint to these sketches and enjoyed the final product much more than working large." Working small was also practical for an artist who spent so much of his time on the road. He made his home in the Salt Lake Valley, though he would spend as much as half the year away from home, exploring the San Rafael Swell, helping out on dinosaur digs, getting into mischief, and gathering new tales to recount of his adventures around Utah. He was an epic storyteller. But as wonderful a character as the artist was, his paintings stand on their own. He passed away in 2011. In his day, H. Francis Sellers was both a notorious and beloved figure whose precise watercolors were highly sought after by collectors.
![[Summit County Fair Grounds] by George Beard, Image 1.](https://assets.artworkarchive.com/image/upload/t_jpg_medium_width/v1/user_50179/GeorgeBeard_1130_medium_qpc6vj.jpg)
