Utah Museum of Fine Arts

05/29/2026

At this month’s Art Lovers Talk, UMFA curators discussed themes popular in 19th-century Western depictions of Africa and the Middle East, known as “Orientalism”. Talks like this help us continue to ask important questions about (often harmful) depictions of “the other” in art.
 
UMFA Art Lover members enjoy one-of-a-kind experiences and events designed to spark curiosity and dialogue about art and the world around us. Deepen your relationship with art by becoming a UMFA Art Lover today! ♥️
 
Link in bio for more information.

Artwork Credit 1:
Edouard Frederic Willhelp Richter (French, 1844-1913), The Jewel of the Haren, 1877, oil on canvas. Gift of Mrs. Howard L. Stoddard, UMFA1989.012.001

Artwork Credit 2:
Pl***oy Playmates and Hugh Hefner, 1979
Getty Images

05/28/2026

The UMFA is for everyone! We encourage families of all shapes and sizes to visit the Museum.

Check out a free family backpack at the welcome desk to experience the Museum in a whole new way. Make the traditional, adult-oriented galleries more fun and accessible for your family!

Each backpack contains hands-on and close-looking activities focused on individual art objects and the cultures they represent. Family backpacks provide a more compelling array of materials and multisensory activities than traditional paper and pencil family guides.

Learn more on our website at https://umfa.utah.edu/visit/family-visitors/.

05/27/2026

We're hiring a Development Director at the UMFA!

This position leads fundraising strategies and activities at the Museum, particularly in soliciting major gifts, while establishing and nurturing relationships with prospects and donors to support initiatives critical to the Museum.

The UMFA is the leading fine arts institution for both the University of Utah and the state of Utah. It is the only institution within the Intermountain West that acquires, exhibits, interprets, and cares for an extensive collection of more than 22,000 fine art objects. By engaging visitors in dynamic programs, exhibitions, and experiences, the UMFA encourages active participation in dialogues that celebrate multiple perspectives and voices.

Support this important work by applying for this key position today! Learn more and apply at https://umfa.utah.edu/about/employment/

05/26/2026

We encourage long looking, deep conversations, and new interpretations of the artworks you find throughout the Museum. Gallery benches are a great place to do all three.

05/23/2026

Everyone knows that April showers bring May flowers, but what this phrase forgets to mention is that May flowers also bring hay fever sours! For all my fellow Utahns who will be allergic to the whole state for the next several months, here is a bouquet of floral goodness that won't make you sneeze. Explore the galleries at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and discover blooms from around the world and across time.

Read more in our latest blog, At the Heart of it All, May Flowers: A Tour of the ‘Garden’ in the Galleries By J. Attridge, UMFA communications coordinator (and hay fever victim) below.

Image credit: (Detail) Francois Ykens, (Flemish, 1601-1693), Floral Still Life, 1644, oil on panel, gift of Val A. Browning, UMFA1993.034.006

By J. Attridge, UMFA communications coordinator (and hay fever victim)  Everyone knows that April showers bring May flowers, but what […]

05/22/2026

Only ONE MONTH LEFT to see the fantastic special exhibition Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation!

This exhibition features a variety of Watt's works, including sculptures, prints, and textiles.

“I view materials as sites for storytelling, repositories of experiences, vulnerabilities, and histories,” said Marie Watt. “Through playing with shifting light, the soft curves of wood grain, the droops of a baby blanket, I examine how familiar textures draw you into the story of a piece, gently leading you to a unique yet shared experience – an interaction with heirloom-like objects. The story does not start or end with a singular work, but expands beyond what is visible, carried forward by the meaning-making viewers bring to the work.”

Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt is organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation in partnership with University Galleries, University of San Diego, and curated by John Murphy, Ph.D., Hoehn Curatorial Fellow for Prints. The UMFA’s iteration of this exhibition was curated by Emily Lawhead, Ph.D., Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Presenting Sponsor:
Bank of America

Curatorial Sponsor:
George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation

Installation Sponsors:
Stephanie and Tim Harpst
The Tozer Endowment Fund

05/19/2026

There are new artworks featured in the North American gallery, including a recent acquisition, Centennial by Ilya Bolotowsky. This is the second work by Bolotowsky currently on view at the Museum.

Plan your visit soon to see all the new works on view throughout the galleries!

05/17/2026

What's your favorite vantage point for really soaking in Onishi Yasuaki's Stone on Boundary installation in The Great Hall?

05/15/2026

"Water operates as a profound cosmological force throughout the [salt 17] exhibition. In the two-channel video installation Vibrations from the Deep (2025), filmed across Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Brazil, and the United States, including footage from the Great Salt Lake, viewers become immersed in water, chanting, and embodied gesture...

Fawundu’s ritualized immersion in the Great Salt Lake grounds the exhibition in the ecological realities of the American West. As the lake recedes and its exposed bed releases toxic dust into surrounding communities, water becomes both absence and warning. In Utah, lithium extraction and mineral economies echo the extractive logics that have shaped the Congo for generations. By entering the saline water in a gesture of ritual care, Fawundu links inland drought to global mineral demand, reminding viewers that the infrastructures of technology and industry are tethered to fragile bodies of water. Salt preserves, yet it also signals depletion. The Great Salt Lake and the Congo River become unlikely mirrors, each bearing the mark of extraction."

Read more in "Adama Delphine Fawundu Brings the Congo (and Beyond) into Conversation with Salt Lake" by Ana Estrada for Southwest Contemporary at https://southwestcontemporary.com/adama-delphine-fawundu/

salt 17: Adama Delphine Fawundu is on view through June 14.

Curatorial Sponsor: Erica and Ben Dahl
salt 17 is funded in part by The Joseph and Evelyn Rosenblatt Enrichment Fund.

Artwork Credit: Adama Delphine Fawundu (American, born 1971), Vibrations from the deep, 2025, (stills from) two-channel HD video, filmed in Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Malta, Cuba, Brazil, and the United States (South Carolina, Utah, Georgia, and Maine), sound, edition 1 of 3, 7 minutes 56 seconds. Courtesy of the artist

05/14/2026

Third Saturday for Families is this Saturday, May 16. Enjoy free admission to the galleries all day, a free art-making activity (we're making paper flowers!), and free parking at the University (all weekend long!).

See y'all there!

05/13/2026

We have several new artworks on view in the Portrait Hall, North American, Japanese, and Global Contemporary galleries. Come see for yourself!

We encourage you to spend time with the art. Read the labels. Scan the QR codes for more information. Look closely. Find little details you might have otherwise missed.

Plus, who wouldn't want to spend an air-conditioned afternoon looking at art?

Artwork Credits:
Image 1: Alice Neel (American, 1900–1984), David McKee and His First Wife Jane, 1968, oil on canvas. The Masterworks Foundation

Image 2: John White Alexander (American, 1856–1915), Portrait of Maude Adams in the Title Role of the Play “L’Aiglon” (“The Eaglet”), 1901, oil on canvas. Purchased with funds from the Marriner S. Eccles Foundation for the Marriner S. Eccles Collection of Masterworks, UMFA1996.19.1

Image 3: Alex Katz (American, born 1927), Study for The Red Smile, 1963, oil on canvas. Purchased with funds from Friends of the Art Museum, UMFA1978.410

Image 4: Brian Bress (American, born 1975), Organizing the Physical Evidence (Purple), 2014, two-channel color HD video on custom monitors, silent 20 minutes 38 seconds. Purchased with funds from the Phyllis Cannon Wattis Endowment Fund, UMFA2016.7.1