Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Tabor Utley became a painter, ceramist, and stage designer active in Colorado Springs where he established a studio in the mid 1930s.

Coming to Colorado for his health, he first stopped in Denver and studied art with Robert Graham and J. Campbell Corey. He founded a commercial art business for the production of stage sets and of making Colorado maps. Pursuing this activity, he traveled around the state, which stirred his interest in the terrain, and correspondingly in landscape painting. As a result, from 1928 to the early 30s, he took landscape painting classes at the Broadmoor Academy in Colorado Springs, studying with Ernest Lawson, Ward Lockwood, Randall Davey and Boardman Robinson. Lawson's impasto technique became apparent as an influence in Utley's painting, as was Robinson's teaching that "invisible structures exist in design" because of the strength of Utley's composition including firm contrast of shape and color.

Utley became a teaching assistant for Robinson at the Academy in the summer of 1934, and before that, in 1932, helped him with murals for Radio City Music Hall in New York City. For Utley, this project led to mural commissions in Colorado Springs at the old Antlers Hotel and the City Auditorium.

Utley also taught at Pueblo Junior College. His work is in the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center.


Source:
Stanley Cuba and Elizabeth Cunningham, "Pikes Peak Vision: The Broadmoor Art Academy, 1919-1945, p. 57 and 184