Utah Museum of Fine Arts

Last updated
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA)
Utah Museum of Fine Arts.jpeg
UMFA in 2008
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
EstablishedMay 6, 1951 (1951-05-06)
Location University of Utah
Marcia & John Price Museum Building
410 Campus Center Drive
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
Coordinates 40°45′37″N111°50′36″W / 40.7602°N 111.8432°W / 40.7602; -111.8432
Type Art museum
Accreditation American Alliance of Museums
DirectorGretchen Dietrich
Architect Machado Silvetti and Prescott Muir Architects
Public transit access Red Line (TRAX)
University South Campus station
Website umfa.utah.edu

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is a state and university art museum located in downtown Salt Lake City on the University of Utah campus. Housed in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building near Rice-Eccles Stadium, the museum holds a permanent collection of nearly 20,000 art objects. Works of art are displayed on a rotating basis.

Contents

Overview

UMFA is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. [1] It has a cafe and store located inside the building along with more than 20 galleries. The museums permanent art collections include nearly 20,000 works of art. [2] The different cultures represented include African, Oceanic and the New World, Asian, European, American, and the Ancient and Classical World. [3]

History

The creation of a formal art gallery on the top floor of the University of Utah's Park Building in the early 1900s marks the beginning of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. In the beginning, paintings by local artists filled this three-room gallery. Through the next six decades, the art department at the University of Utah received major art gifts and specific requests from donors to remodel the gallery into a museum. After the renovation of the gallery was finished, the University’s president, A. Ray Olpin, established it as the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on May 6, 1951. [4] In 1967, Frank Sanquineti was appointed as the first professional director. By this time, the museum had entered a new period of growth which resulted in the building of a new museum.[ citation needed ]

After the museum relocated in 1970, the Annual Friends of the Art Museum Acquisition Fund was formed to further expand its collections. Over the years this annual fund has helped support the expansion of the museum’s collections and its ability to offer art education programs. Due to donations from patrons, local and national foundations, the University community, and the citizens of the State of Utah, the UMFA’s collection now encompasses 5,200 years of artistic creativity. Since the mid-1900s, when the collection was around 800 objects, it has grown to over 13,000 art objects. This huge expansion required a larger building. Machado Silvetti and Prescott Muir Architects were chosen to design the new museum building. [5] The UMFA opened the 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) facility named for Marcia and John Price [6] on June 2, 2001. David Dee was appointed Executive Director the following year.

Since the second relocation, the UMFA experienced growth in all areas of operation. In February 2005, the Utah State Legislature declared the UMFA as an official state institution, confirming the importance of the museum’s role as a center for art, culture, and education in the state of Utah. In April 2009, David Dee resigned from the museum and Gretchen Dietrich was named Executive Director effective August 2010. [7]

Collections

As of 2017, the UMFA held a collection of nearly 20,000 art objects. [2]

Works of the European tradition from the 14th to the 19th centuries include such artists as Filippo Lippi, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Anthony van Dyck, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Thomas Gainsborough, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Auguste Rodin. Represented American artists include Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Edmonia Lewis, and John Singer Sargent. Modern and contemporary holdings include Helen Frankenthaler, Yayoi Kusama, Nancy Holt, and Robert Smithson. The museum's non-Western collections have particular strength in works from India, Polynesia, and Mesoamerica. [8]

Restitution of art stolen in the Holocaust

In August 2004, the museum learned that an oil painting that had been stolen during The Holocaust had found its way into the museum's collection by donation in 1993. The museum returned the art to the heirs of its original owner. [9] [10] [11] The piece was the 18th-century Les Amoureaux Jeunes by François Boucher. [9] It had been stolen by Nazi Hermann Göring from the collection of French Jewish art gallery owner Andre Jean Seligmann during the Nazi occupation of France. [9] [10] [12] [13] Suzanne Seligmann Robbins, Andre Seligmann's daughter-in-law, said: "Honor this museum and the people in it and the University of Utah for what they have done with such honor, with such diligence, with such integrity." [14]

Events and programs

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts offers family, adult and children's programs along with tours for visitors. Activities include self-guided visits of the galleries, hands-on art projects, films, lectures, and informative guided tours. Family programs offer studio art activities on the third Saturday of each month. Adult programs include painting classes, lectures, and fine arts film series. Children's programs include special summer classes where children may combine history with art making. There are also classes for parents and their children from ages 2–5 to learn how to paint and sculpt. [15]

Past exhibitions

UMFA in 2016 Museum of Fine Arts.jpg
UMFA in 2016

Exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts generally change on a two to three month basis. Some examples of past exhibitions since 2007 include:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum</span> Art museum in Boston, MA, US (opened 1903)

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded by Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose will called for her art collection to be permanently exhibited "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Kansas City, Missouri

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kunsthistorisches Museum</span> Art museum in Vienna, Austria

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal dome. The term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country and one of the most important museums worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Montreal Museum of Fine Arts</span> Art museum in Montreal, Quebec

The Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square Mile stretch of Sherbrooke Street west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">De Young Museum</span> Art museum in San Francisco, US

The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Honor. The de Young is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Museum of Fine Arts</span> Art museum in Richmond, VA

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the support of specific programs and all acquisition of artwork, as well as additional general support.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Museum of Art</span> Municipal art museum in Alabama, US

The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. Its collection includes more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing various cultures, including Asian, European, American, African, Pre-Columbian, and Native American. The museum is also home to some Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculptures,and decorative arts from the late 13th century to c. 1750.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Fine Arts, Houston</span> Art museum, institute, library, sculpture park in Houston, TX United States

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building in 2020, it is the 12th largest art museum in the world based on square feet of gallery space. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 70,000 works from six continents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Museum, Warsaw</span> National museum in Warsaw, Poland

The National Museum in Warsaw, popularly abbreviated as MNW, is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. It comprises a rich collection of ancient art, counting about 11,000 pieces, an extensive gallery of Polish painting since the 16th century and a collection of foreign painting including some paintings from Adolf Hitler's private collection, ceded to the museum by the American authorities in post-war Germany. The museum is also home to numismatic collections, a gallery of applied arts and a department of oriental art, with the largest collection of Chinese art in Poland, comprising some 5,000 objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Carolina Museum of Art</span> Museum in Raleigh, North Carolina

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that established its collection, the Museum has continued to be a model of enlightened public policy with free admission to the permanent collection. Today, it encompasses a collection that spans more than 5,000 years of artistic work from antiquity to the present, an amphitheater for outdoor performances, and a variety of celebrated exhibitions and public programs. The Museum features over 40 galleries as well as more than a dozen major works of art in the nation's largest museum park with 164-acres. One of the leading art museums in the American South, the NCMA recently completed a major expansion winning international acclaim for innovative approaches to energy-efficient design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LeConte Stewart</span>

LeConte Stewart was a Latter-day Saint artist primarily known for his landscapes of rural Utah. His media included oils, watercolors, pastel and charcoal, as well as etchings, linocuts, and lithographs. His home/studio in Kaysville, Utah is on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krannert Art Museum</span> Art museum in Champaign, Illinois

The Krannert Art Museum (KAM) is a fine art museum located at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, United States. It has 48,000 square feet (4,500 m2) of space devoted to all periods of art, dating from ancient Egypt to contemporary photography. The museum's collection of more than 11,000 objects can be accessed online and includes specializations in 20th-century art, Asian art, and pre-Columbian art, particularly works from the Andes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">York Art Gallery</span> Public art gallery in England

York Art Gallery is a public art gallery in York, England, with a collection of paintings from 14th-century to contemporary, prints, watercolours, drawings, and ceramics. It closed for major redevelopment in 2013, reopening in summer of 2015. The building is a Grade II listed building and is managed by York Museums Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Gallery of Hamilton</span> Art museum in Ontario, Canada

The Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) is an art museum located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The museum occupies a 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft) building on King Street West in downtown Hamilton, designed by Trevor P. Garwood-Jones. The institution is southwestern Ontario's largest and oldest art museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art</span> Museum in Norman, Oklahoma

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is an art museum on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, Oklahoma.

Suling Wang is an internationally recognized painter and contemporary artist, known predominantly for her large scale abstract works. She currently lives and works in London, UK and Taichung, Taiwan.

Jacques Seligmann & Co. was a French and American art dealer and gallery specializing in decorative art and antiques. It is considered one of the foremost dealers and galleries in fostering appreciation for the collecting of contemporary European art. Many pieces purchased through Jacques Seligmann & Co. now reside in the collections of fine art museums and galleries worldwide, donated to those institutions by private purchasers of work from the dealer.

Chris Gustin is an American ceramicist. Gustin models his work on the human form, which is shown through the shape, color, and size of the pieces.

Galerie St. Etienne is a New York art gallery specializing in Austrian and German Expressionism, established in Vienna in 1939 by Otto Kallir. In 1923, Kallir founded the Neue Galerie in Vienna. Forced to leave Austria after the 1938 Nazi invasion, Kallir established his gallery in Paris as the Galerie St. Etienne, named after the Neue Galerie's location near Vienna's Cathedral of St. Stephen. In 1939, Kallir and his family left France for the United States, moving the Galerie St. Etienne to New York City. The gallery still exists, run by Otto Kallir's granddaughter Jane at 24 West 57th Street.

Leslie Anne Anderson is a Cuban-American museum curator and art historian, notable for her scholarship and exhibitions of nineteenth-century European, American, and regional art.

References

  1. ↑ "The Utah Museum of Fine Arts: Mission Statement and Core Values". University of Utah. Archived from the original on 2010-04-12. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  2. 1 2 Means, Sean P. (August 19, 2017). "How a building fix led Utah Museum of Fine Arts curators to 'reimagine' how the public connects with art". The Salt Lake Tribune.
  3. ↑ "Highlights of the Collection". University of Utah. Archived from the original on September 12, 2008. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  4. ↑ "Museum History". University of Utah. Archived from the original on 2009-08-30. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  5. ↑ "About the UMFA | The Utah Museum of Fine Arts". umfa.utah.edu. Retrieved 2023-03-30.
  6. ↑ "COE Receives Major Gift, New Name". The University of Utah. 2023-01-11. Retrieved 2023-03-31.
  7. ↑ "Gretchen Dietrich Named Executive Director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts". artdaily.com. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  8. ↑ "The UMFA Collection". umfa.utah.edu. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  9. 1 2 3 Review of the repatriation of Holocaust art assets in the United States : hearing. DIANE Publishing. pp. 71–. ISBN   978-1-4223-2359-5.
  10. 1 2 Paul H. B. Shin (April 2, 2004). "Art looted by Nazis returned to N.Y. heir". Nydailynews.com. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  11. ↑ Marilyn Henry (January 25, 2010). "The art of war - Magazine - Jerusalem Post". Jpost.com. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Stolen painting goes under hammer". BBC. June 17, 2004. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  13. ↑ Dave Gagon (February 26, 2004). "Utah art found to be Nazi loot". Deseretnews.com. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  14. ↑ Carole Mikita (April 1, 2004). "Nazi-Stolen Painting Returned to Owner's Heirs". Https. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Children's Programs". University of Utah. Archived from the original on June 9, 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  16. ↑ Mortensen, Parker Scott (2019-08-01). "Two for All – Power Couples: The Pendant Format in Art". SLUG Magazine. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  17. ↑ "Utah curator wins national award for excellence". Deseret News. 2018-05-08. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  18. ↑ "Past Exhibitions". University of Utah . Retrieved 2010-02-11.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.