Alice Merrill Horne

Alice Merrill Horne (1868–1948) was a Utah artist and politician.

Biography Early life and education Alice Merrill Horne (called Allie in her youth) was born in Fillmore, Utah Territory, to Clarence Merrill and Bathsheba (Kate) Smith. Her maternal grandparents were George A. Smith and Bathsheba W. Smith.

Horne earned a teaching certificate and degree in pedagogy at the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah). She also studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was later instructed privately by artists John Hafen, George M. Ottinger, J. T. Harwood, Herman Haag, Mary Teasdel, and Henry Taggart.

Alice Merrill Horne married George H. Horne in 1890. They met while Alice Horne was organizing a Shakespearean Society. George would spend much of his career as a banker in Salt Lake City. Early in their marriage, George served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in the southern United States, and during this time Alice worked as a schoolteacher at the Washington School in Salt Lake City. In 1904, she served as a delegate on behalf of the Relief Society to the International Congress of Women held in Berlin, where she delivered two addresses. and Columbus, Westward Ho!. The former is a handbook of Utah art and artists that aligns with her continual promotion of the arts throughout her life's work. A portion of her introduction to the book reads, "God has created gifts, and men work so that we are not without poets, painters, sculptors, architects, craftsmen, gardeners and home makers. So long as talent and industry unite there will be art—original, spontaneous, inspirational—the kind that lives. We are all artists to a degree, or at least let us believe that Providence so intended." Moving away from the description of art and towards the production of it, Horne's 1922 Columbus, Westward Ho! is the script of a play that she authored. Intended for young audiences, it is a retelling of the Christopher Columbus story.

Starting in the 1920s, Horne ran an art gallery with the main goal of exhibiting and selling works of inter-mountain artists. Her husband died in 1934 and she continued to run the art gallery until her own death in 1948.

Awards and recognition First inductee to the Salt Lake City Council of Women's Hall of Fame Was given a Medal of Honor for civic service from the Academy of Western Culture 2nd woman in Utah to be elected to a state office