Editor’s Note: "At the Heart of It All: Object Origins” is a blog series sharing ongoing research into the origins of artworks in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) permanent collection, a dynamic gathering of objects from around the world and across time.

In 2020, many artists created murals across Salt Lake City in response to the global pandemic and racial injustice. These public works reflect our city’s pain and frustration but also our hopes and demands for a better future. In an attempt to extend these conversations, the UMFA partnered with several muralists for the 2020: From here on out exhibition in the Museum’s G. W. Anderson Family Great Hall. 

In 2020, many artists created murals across Salt Lake City in response to the global pandemic and racial injustice. These public works reflect our city’s pain and frustration but also our hopes and demands for a better future. In an attempt to extend these conversations, the UMFA partnered with several muralists for the 2020: From here on out exhibition. 

In 2020, many artists created murals across Salt Lake City in response to the global pandemic and racial injustice. These public works reflect our city’s pain and frustration but also our hopes and demands for a better future. In an attempt to extend these conversations, the UMFA partnered with several muralists for the 2020: From here on out exhibition.

Veronica Montes, UMFA Art Ambassador

One of my favorite pastimes is wandering in art museums. I delight in seeing various thoughts, ideas, and feelings shown through art in one place. Looking at artworks often leads me to thinking about many things, like books. Reading is another one of my favorite pastimes. Here are some books that come to mind when I look at art in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ European art galleries.  

What is that happy pattern of concentric squares beckoning visitors across the University of Utah campus to visit the Utah Museum of Fine Arts? The bright patterns are from a screen print series in the UMFA permanent collection titled Series III, Spectrum Squared, Variations (1973) by beloved Utah artist Anna Campbell Bliss (1925–2015). This series of seven prints is rotating through the UMFA’s modern and contemporary gallery this year and is featured on many promotional materials.

By Sabita Bastakoti, University of Utah student and curatorial intern
and Whitney Tassie, senior curator

This spring UMFA staff installed a special contemporary work in the European galleries—the oil painting Periphery (2013) by the British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Originally commissioned for the artist’s salt exhibition at the UMFA, the painting has since been hanging among the contemporary collection, but it’s time to examine it in a new context.