Drawn to last: At 86, Denner still personifies the working artist

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The walls of Pat Denner's downtown Salt Lake City art and design gallery are probably the only place in Utah where you'll find a painting of Air Force One next to the watercolor of a nubile brunette taking off her sweater.

Over on the gallery's east wall, a portrait of the Virgin Mary hangs next to caricature drawings. Close by is Denner's copy of a Picasso portrait, a woman's face split in two, when the modern artist was in the full swing of cubism.

A walk into Denner's gallery can be as disorienting, but it's all sewn neatly together by the long string of the 86-year-old artist's life. Even if you don't know Denner's name, you've seen his work.

If exposure is the sole criterion of influence, in fact, Denner may well qualify as one of the most influential commercial artists west of the Mississippi.

At least two of Denner's works qualify as iconic: the 40-foot "Vegas Vic" neon cowboy that's graced Las Vegas' Freemont Street since 1951 and the menu portrait of Col. Harland Sanders he painted for Harman Restaurants, the original KFC.

For Utah residents, just as familiar is Denner's design of the neon skyline backdrop announcing the downstairs entrance of Club Manhattan, which has graced the corner of 400 South and Main Street for decades.

"I didn't even know who Denner was until I opened up business here," said Tom Thompson, owner of Saan's Gallery & Studio just east of Denner's gallery on 300 South. "Then once I got to know him I realized I already know so much of his work."

Denner was born in Park City, then handed over to a Salt Lake City Roman Catholic orphanage. His long career connects not just the dots of history, but the development of commercial art as a profession.

After a railroad job inspecting brakes where he spent nights in a small depot room with no indoor plumbing, Denner landed a job with the U.S. Navy drawing art for military brochures and catalogues.

He studied advertising and design at New York City's Pratt Institute before returning home to Salt Lake City, where he worked for Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO), Auerbach's department store and the downtown design firm of Richard Bailey.

Coming of professional age when art was drawn by hand in advertising agencies and department stores, Denner said he's made stabs here at modernizing his techniques. Drawing by hand was his first love -- that's not counting his longtime wife, Gloria, who passed away a little more than one year ago.

"I bought a computer once. I sold it," Denner said. "I wasn't going to use somebody else's artwork from a template or other such nonsense."

That old-school attitude covers all he does, including the Picasso copy hanging next to his desk.

Denner sniffs at most modern art. "[Picasso] did some good art at the beginning, then he went into that crap," he said. "I just copied that for fun. As a matter of fact, that's how I do all my art -- for fun."

He much prefers the works of Rubens, whose painting of the crucifixion of Jesus he also copied -- with a twist. Instead of one nail going through Jesus' feet, Denner painted two, or one through each foot. A 1981 letter from then-Roman Catholic Bishop William K. Weigand congratulating Denner on drawing the Cathedral of the Madeleine's coat of arms hangs on the wall, surrounded by a bevy of pinup girls.

His penchant for drawing women, half-dressed or otherwise, was a source of teasing from his late wife. "She'd say, 'Well, that's very nice, but why don't you paint a landscape?' " Denner said. "I still get a lot of that from people who ask why I draw what I do. I just say that the best design I ever saw of a human was a woman."

One piece he will never sell, due to the number of hours he put into its creation, is a painting of "Dynasty" soap-opera star Emma Samms. "She has a beautiful body -- look at the hands!" Denner said.

Admittedly, he doesn't sell a lot of pieces from his studio, which he's kept on 300 South since 1982. He's thankful his wife did well in real-estate ventures, which helps sustain him now.

Despite reaching retirement age years ago, he won't relinquish the routine of getting up in the morning, driving to the gallery in his yellow Cadillac, dressed to the nines in either a cardigan sweater or jeans jacket and tie. Projects still come in, such as a series of illustrations he's finishing for the Utah Press Association.

Stuart Craig, 82 years old and a part-owner of Saan's before it was eventually sold to Thompson, still visits Denner on occasion in his downtown office. "When you have a business you've enjoyed for so long, it's hard to give up," Craig said. "I'm sure that's why he keeps coming in."

Commercial art has filled his life with so much satisfaction, in fact, that it's made Denner fearless of when his time comes.

"Afraid of death? Hell, no," Denner said. "I've had fun all my life. A lot of people can't say that."

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