Campus Vignette
Gallery stroll through the Utah Museum of Fine Arts
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts houses more than 20,000 works of art. Image courtesy of the UMFA.
When was the last time you visited an art museum? Do you remember?
If the answer is no, you may be overdue. Spanish painter Pablo Picasso likened art appreciation to “washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
UMFA exhibits
Temporary:
- salt 15: Horacio Rodriguez (through November 13, 2022)
- David Rios Ferreira: Transcending Time and Space (through December 4, 2022)
- 2020: From here on out (closing date TBD)
- Clarissa Tossin, Ch’u Mayaa, 2017 (through June 26, 2022)
Upcoming:
- Air will be on view July 16 - December 11, 2022
Digital:
- Time Trip: Spiral Jetty, and Robert Smithson in the 1970s
- Mining the West: Primary Elements
- Utah Women Working for Better Days!
Permanent:
If you need a salve for your soul (and who doesn’t?), the University of Utah has just the place — the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, or UMFA.
The UMFA is the only institution in our region that collects, exhibits, interprets, and preserves an extensive collection of more than 20,000 original works of art, from the ancient to the contemporary.
A brief history of the museum
According to the UMFA’s website, it all started in 1914 when a small art gallery opened in the Park Building on Presidents Circle. “The gallery was renovated in the late 1940s to accommodate a gift of art from Winifred Kimball Hudnut, daughter of a prominent Utah pioneer family,” the website indicates, and “the new gallery was incorporated as the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and reopened in 1951.”
In 1970, the UMFA occupied “the university’s new Arts and Architecture Center,” and “in 2001, it moved to the 74,000-square-foot Marcia and John Price Museum Building, its current home.” Due to the pandemic, the UMFA closed in March 2020 but reopened to the public on August 26, 2020.
According to the website, the UMFA is one of only three American Alliance of Museums (AAM)-accredited museums in Utah, in addition to the Natural History Museum of Utah at the U and the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art at Utah State University. In February 2005, the Utah State Legislature declared the UMFA the state’s official fine arts museum.
Visitor information
Accessing art online is wonderful, but there’s nothing quite like appreciating it in person. If you’d like to visit the museum, it’s located at 410 Campus Center Drive.
What to know before you go:
- U of U students, staff, and faculty get in free! Visit utah.edu/visit to learn who else qualifies for free admission and admission rates for the general public.
- Admission is free for everyone on the first Wednesday and third Saturday of the month (access may vary for special ticketed exhibitions). Free tickets must be reserved in advance through the UMFA’s ticketing page.
- Online ticket reservations are encouraged for entry to UMFA’s galleries.
- Free and paid parking are available on weekdays. Parking on campus is free on weekends, except for reserved stalls where indicated.
- Though face masks are not required, for everyone’s safety, the UMFA recommends wearing them when visiting the museum and encourages social distancing.
Below is a sample of what you’ll find.
Over the past year, artists have created numerous murals across Salt Lake City in response to the global pandemic and racial injustice. In participation with this movement, the UMFA invited Roots Art Kollective, comprised of local artists Miguel Galaz, Luis Novoa, and Alan Ochoa, to conceive of a museum-based mural exhibition 2020: From here on out. Image courtesy of the UMFA.
Members of the Roots Art Kollective. Image courtesy of the UMFA.
In his new exhibition in the UMFA’s salt series, Salt Lake City-based Horacio Rodriguez considers the ancient ceramics in the Museum’s Mesoamerican collection as he investigates the immigration of people and things — past and present — across the U.S.-Mexico border. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
Throughout the exhibition Transcending Time and Space, artist David Rios Ferreira presents a collection of abstracted drawings, collages, photographs, and video representative of gateways and portals. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
Ch’u Mayaa, a video work by Clarissa Tossin, explores the influence of Mayan architecture on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
The current installation of the UMFA’s modern and contemporary collection investigates broad themes including, but not limited to, abstraction and conceptual art as well as racial and gender inequities in Utah and the United States. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
Air, on view July 16–December 11, 2022, makes the invisible visible, through contemporary art that explores air from environmental, social justice, and cultural perspectives. About the image: Cara Romero, a photographer from the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, has said that Evolvers (2019) is a response to the western landscape and an expression of how Indigenous peoples feel inseparable from it. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
The digital exhibition Mining the West, a collaboration between J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections and the UMFA, illustrates the implications mining has had, and continues to have, on the American West and its people. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
The UMFA collections department protects and conserves a dynamic collection of nearly 20,000 objects. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
The UMFA’s American and regional art galleries explore the impulse for westward expansion and the critical response to this migration, one of the defining themes of 19th century American history. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
The digital exhibition Utah Women Working for Better Days! celebrates voting rights anniversaries in 2020, including the 150th anniversary of Utah women casting the first votes in the United States under a women's equal suffrage law. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
The European galleries explore the transmission of artistic ideas and styles throughout the continent and across the Atlantic Ocean. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
The Ancient Mesoamerican gallery celebrates the diverse arts and traditions of peoples who lived in what is now Mexico and central America. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
Chinese Art: Emulation and Innovation explores the near 4,000-year tradition of Chinese ceramics. Image and content courtesy of the UMFA.
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