For the next few weeks, LeConte Stewart's many fans will have an opportunity to see an unusual number of his paintings on public display.

The artist, known for his soft, impressionistic landscapes of Utah, is featured in two separate shows. The gallery in Ogden's Union Station and the Museum of Church History and Art are each independently showcasing Stewart's work.

For the Gallery at the Station, just off Ogden's historic 25th Street, the chance is especially welcome. Stewart lived and worked in northern Utah much of his life, and while other Utah painters often focus on the redrock south, he painted the farmlands and mountains of the north. Many of the paintings in both shows depict pastoral scenes in communities such as Eden, Farmington and Ogden itself.

At the Ogden gallery, employees and patrons play the "where is this?" game, picking out local scenes. The location of one painting was unknown until a patron came in and identified it as a house in Eden. "It was a polygamous home, and so that gives a little spice to it," said Roberta Beverly, public relations officer for the gallery.

The paintings come from many sources, public and private. Gallery at the Station board member Lorna Kennedy helped cull the more than 40 paintings from various collections, including 23 pieces from one collector who wanted to remain anonymous and some pieces from library collections in Bountiful and Kaysville.

Stewart "was such a wonderful man. He was kind and gentle, not pretentious at all. He was very humble," said Kennedy, who studied with the artist.

Church History Museum show curator Robert Davis, author of LeConte Stewart: Spirit of the Landscape, feels the same way about Stewart, who was a longtime friend. "He liked honest company but he didn't like people patronizing him."

Stewart was born in Glenwood, Utah, in 1891. He was a prolific painter and also taught private classes and at the University of Utah, where he served as chairman of the art department. He died in 1990, having produced thousands of images of Utah.

The church museum's show looks at the unique landscape created by Mormon settlers in Utah through the work of Stewart and his contemporary, J. George Midgley. Midgley created bromoil transfer pictures, essentially lithographs made from photographs.

The two artists' work shows a landscape that began as beautiful and sometimes austere and was modified by the irrigation canals, houses, barns and villages typical of Mormon settlements.

They documented their world and interpreted it through their art, using muted tones and light to show the land as they felt it was, not as a romanticized Technicolor landscape. "They loved what they did and they loved to portray the land, and they knew what they were talking about," Davis said.

"There's the aesthetic quality, there's the essence of looking at it, but then there's their feelings about it. It's not just another landscape painter who painted pretty pictures. It's like a great musician . . . their disappointments, their joys come out in their work."

The exhibit at the museum is complemented by excerpts and quotations from such sources as Scripture and observations by travelers in Utah, as well as by the artists themselves. A quote from Stewart says: "Impressionism is the most important painting innovation of all time . . . I thought to myself, why not use this technique to express an idea rather than making it the end goal of a painting? I have tried to think of it as a means of interpreting landscaping rather than making it merely impressionistic."

Stewart's early works are most sought after; he called his plein-air technique of the 1920s and '30s "Blood and Thunder" because of its speed and intensity. "He could just put the colors down, with an uncanny knowledge of when to stop," Davis said. "I think he did this kind of landscape better than anyone else."

Two Stewart shows

* The Gallery at the Station's LeConte Stewart retrospective opens Monday and continues through March 31 in the Ogden Union Station, 2501 Wall Ave. Call 801-393-9882.

* "Landscape & Life: The Rural Setting of the Latter-day Saints" continues at the Museum of Church History and Art, 45 N. West Temple in Salt Lake City, through April 18. Call 801-240-3310 for information.