SALT LAKE CITY – Arnold Friberg, a Utah artist best known for his painting of George Washington in prayer at Valley Forge, died Thursday, his family said. He was 96

Jayna Friberg-Cleamons said her father-in-law died at a Salt Lake City rehabilitation center after hip replacement surgery.

Friberg, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also painted portraits of figures from the Book of Mormon.

“He didn’t want to be known as Mormon artist,” Friberg-Cleamons said. “He just wants to be defined as an artist that painted a wide range of things.”

Friberg-Cleamons said Friberg became an expert in any subject area he depicted, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to the history of college football. She said his paintings are full of emotion.

“There’s something about the light that (he) put in these paintings that just touches” people, she said. “His work inspires people.”

Friberg also painted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, his daughter-in-law said, holding forth in his own studio at Buckingham Palace for the commission.

Friberg’s “The Prayer at Valley Forge,” which he created to commemorate the United States’ bicentennial in 1976, is displayed at the Mount Vernon estate in Virginia. It depicts Washington kneeling in the snow beside his horse.