March 03, 2026

C. C. A. Christensen with Jenny Champoux – 1022

1 hour 1 minute

Jennifer Champoux is a teacher, scholar of Latter-day Saint visual art, and the director of the

Book of Mormon Art Catalog. She authored C. C. A. Christensen: A Mormon Visionary,

coauthored Picturing Christ: Understanding Depictions of Jesus in History and Art, and coedited

Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Nephi 8. She hosted the limited-series podcasts Latter-day

Saint Art and Behold: Conversations on Book of Mormon Art. Jenny earned a BA in international

politics from Brigham Young University (2004) and an MA in art history from Boston

University (2006). She lives in Colorado with her husband and three children.

C. C. A. Christensen: A Mormon Visionary (University of Illinois Press; Amazon)

Related work I’ve published: “‘In Their Promised Canaan Stand:’ Outlawry, Landscape, and

Memory in C. C. A. Christensen’s Mormon Panorama,” BYU Studies Quarterly 60, no. 2 (2021).

Highlights about C. C. A. Christensen:

1. C. C. A. Christensen was born to a poor family in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1831. As a

youth, he lived and studied at a poor house boarding school, before taking classes at the

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

2. While he was an art student, the first Latter-day Saint missionaries arrived in

Copenhagen. C. C. A. joined the Church in 1850. He threw himself into the work of

learning the Gospel, reading the Book of Mormon, helping with Danish translations of

hymns, helping his mother and brothers immigrate to Utah, and then serving a mission in

Scandinavia before immigrating himself. His art training and career took a back seat to

his religious commitments.

3. C. C. A. served three missions in Scandinavia. The first, in Norway, was from 1853 to

1857. He faced religious persecution and was jailed. Christensen returned from Utah to

serve a second mission in Scandinavia from 1865 to 1868. He returned again to serve in

Denmark from 1887 to 1889.

4. C. C. A. married Elise Haarby on the ship as they set off for Utah in 1857. They traveled

across the plains as handcart pioneers. He later took a second wife, Maren Pettersen, in

1868. He had a total of 14 children, 12 of which lived to adulthood.

5. C. C. A. was the most prolific 19 th -century artist of Latter-day Saint history and scripture.

He combined his European art training with Latter-day Saint beliefs and subjects. He also

wrote extensively. He published poetry, essays, and letters to the editor. He helped write a

history of the Scandinavian Mission. And yet, his work is not well known today.

6. The Mormon Panorama was a massive painted scroll detailing 23 scenes of early

Mormon history. In the last quarter of the 19 th century, CCA and some of his family

traveled around Utah cities in the winters giving presentations of the Mormon Panorama.

It helped solidify the Saints’ understanding of their history.

7. In 1886, Church leaders hired CCA to paint the creation room mural in the Manti

Temple. It was recently restored and is still there today.

8. In 1890, C. C. A. won a contest to illustrate a Church flipchart on the life of Nephi. These

10 images were distributed by the Deseret Sunday School Union.

9. Christensen was fully dedicated to living his beliefs, often at great personal cost.

The post C. C. A. Christensen with Jenny Champoux – 1022 appeared first on The Cultural Hall Podcast.

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