Findings, fun facts, and fly specks: Results from the paintings survey!

November 18, 2015 by umfablog

Guest Blogger: Stephanie Hufford Hey everyone! I’m back one last time to talk about the final results of our survey of the UMFA’s European paintings collection. It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, so I’ll catch you up a little first. The UMFA received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to perform a comprehensive survey of the European painting collection. We (Robyn, the UMFA conservator, Leslie Anderson-Perkins, UMFA’s curator of European, American and Regional […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: art, collection highlight, conservation, museum, painting, transparency, umfa, UMFA staff, University of Utah, uofu

Interacting with Creation and Erasure: Art of the Bingham Canyon Mine

June 10, 2014 by umfablog

It’s been a wonderful time at the UMFA lately, and a new exhibition is a big part of that. Staff and visitors are abuzz about the fantastic, fascinating art now on view in some of our downstairs galleries, and I can’t wait to share some details with you here. Perhaps the coolest part: it turns out that the source of inspiration for the artists in this new exhibition is right in our own backyard. Northern Utah’s Bingham Canyon Mine is actually […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: benefits of museums, community, exhibitions, family, kids, painting, University of Utah, Viewing art

Collection Highlight / Throwback Thursday: Timeline Edition

May 15, 2014 by umfablog

There is a hum of activity this week as work on the Timeline (to be posted in the cafe in the coming weeks) heats up. As was alluded to in previous posts, the Timeline will map major moments in the history of the UMFA, and today’s guest post touches on a real treasure. When this piece entered the collection, it put the UMFA in a celebratory mood: thanks to the generosity of Val A. Browning, the people of Utah gained access […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: #throwbackthursday, Art is 100, benefits of museums, Brueghel, community, donate, donor, painting, University of Utah

Collection Highlight: Portrait of Miss Winifred De Wolfe

February 4, 2014 by umfablog

One of my favorite recurring features on this blog is the Collection Highlight, which presents a chance to examine more closely a specific work in the museum’s collection. With all the pieces in the collection, any chance to pause and get to know something a little better is a real treat. I decided to let a rather random process dictate how I found something to highlight this time: I simply went to our collection database and vowed to learn what […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: art, Art is 100, collection highlight, Miss Winifred De Wolfe, mystery, Natacha Rambova, painting, portrait, transparency

OPEN TODAY The Savage Poem Around Me: Alfred Lambourne’s Great Salt Lake

December 13, 2013 by umfablog

The Savage Poem Around me: Alfred Lambourne’s Great Salt Lake opens today, and is on view until June! Alfred Lambourne walked the Mormon Trail in 1866, at age sixteen, to Salt Lake City, sketching during much of the route. By the 1880s he had become a well-known local artist who painted and traveled with Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt on their many visits to Salt Lake City. Of the varied landscapes he painted, nothing held his imagination so thoroughly as […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: art, conservation, contemporary art exhibition, museum, museum events, painting, restoration, transparency, University of Utah

Collection Highlight: The Ambush of Captain Allen McLane

October 21, 2013 by umfablog

Okay. This is a very difficult work to show and talk about on the internet (yet another argument for seeing art in person!), but bear with me. Allan McLane (August 8, 1746 – May 22, 1829) was an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. The story of the ambush was covered in a much earlier post on this blog, and I won’t be going into much detail about that here. Rather, in the spirit of fast-approaching Halloween, I want to focus […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: collection highlight, painting, transparency, umfa, University of Utah, Viewing art

Collection Highlight Two-fer: Fragment of Relief & Portrait of Jean-Louis Reynier

July 15, 2013 by umfablog

214 years ago, on July 15th, 1799,  the Rosetta Stone was discovered during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. Containing a decree recorded in classical Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphs, researchers could finally decode the mysterious symbols into words.  Among the participants in the campaign was Jean–Louis Reynier, whose (very handsome) face guards our galleries. I pass this painting almost every day–mostly because I think he kind of looks like Colin Firth— but until this topic came up as a collection highlight, I had […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: art, collection highlight, Egypt, European, painting, University of Utah, Viewing art

Collection Highlight: Allegory of Earth

June 27, 2013 by umfablog

We have reached the height of summer, and now are witnessing its very slow decline. The decline, in fact, is almost undetectable considering that it’s going to be in the triple digits here for the rest of this week… With talk of seasons, thoughts turn to the earth. I thought it the perfect time to better acquaint myself with one of my favorite paintings in the gallery. The Van Balen family and the Brueghel family were frequent collaborators, and one […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: art, collection highlight, painting, umfa, University of Utah, uofu, Viewing art

BRB: Getting Married

June 17, 2013 by umfablog

I’m getting married this week! This means you, my loyal fans and readers, must exercise some patience while I take a brief hiatus. I promise to be back soon, and I’ll be so excited to get back to exploring and learning together. … But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The wedding isn’t for a few days, which means I have plenty of time to investigate “The Wedding Party” by Philip Richard Morris from our European Collection. I took full […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: art, benefits of museums, collection highlight, painting, transparency, umfa, UMFA staff, University of Utah, Viewing art