Utah Art, Utah Artists

Book excerpt: Utah Art, Utah Artists surveys 150 years of the extraordinary talent and achievements of Utah artists. This overview ranges from the sublime paintings of a resourceful ranching woman to the polished work of artists trained in Paris, Rome, and New York. It highlights the rural and the cosmopolitan, the traditional and the modern, the concrete and the transcendent that encompass Utah art. This sweeping exhibition showcases 300 works of art by 220 artists painstakingly compiled from a list of 10,000 Utah artists. Selection was made in light of five considerations: quality of the work; critical acclaim and professional success of the artist; belated but deserved recognition of the artist; young emerging artists who are the future of art in Utah; and a representative sampling of periods, styles, mediums and geographic regions of the state. One hundred twenty of the artworks are reproduced in rich color, most illustrated for the first time. Selected works and biographical material on the artists are presented chronologically, providing a perspective on Utah art that will make this volume an essential reference for collectors, scholars, and enthusiasts of Utah art. Vern G. Swanson, Ph.D., has been the director of the Springville Museum of Art since 1980. He has written numerous books and articles and he is coauthor with Drs. R. S. Olpin and W. C. Seifrit of Utah Art, Utah Painting and Sculpture, and Utah Arts. Robert S. Olpin, Ph.D., a University of Utah Professor of Art History, has become a familiar face on his eighteen-part television course on the Art Life in Utah series. He has acted as a consultant to such organizations as the National Gallery and Vose Galleries. Donna L. Poulton, Ph.D., is the Assistant Curator of Exhibitions at the Springville Museum if Art. For the past three years she has been documenting and chronicling, on film, the lives and works of Utah artists. Janie L. Rogers, M.A., wrote her master's thesis on Utah architecture. Rogers is a founding member of the Associated Art Historians, Inc., Salt Lake City.