During your visit to this Salt Lake City attraction, discover meaningful connections with the artistic expressions of the world’s cultures through the Museum’s collection and special exhibits. Start or end your visit to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the Museum Café. In the Museum Store you can shop for art-inspired gifts and keepsakes.
Utah Museum of Fine Arts Collection
The Utah art museum’s collection is comprised of more than 19,000 works and spans from ancient and classical art to modern and contemporary art. Disciplines within the collection include paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture and mixed media by artists from around the world.
Ancient and Classical Art
Egyptian antiquities including pottery from the Pre-Dynastic to the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty and a table of offering from the First Intermediate Period were among the first items to enter into the Museum’s Ancient and Classical Art Collection. Later additions to the collection included a sarcophagus from the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, classical pottery such as a Greek Apulian amphora from the fourth century BCE as well as a Greco-Roman sarcophagus from the Constantinian period.
Asian Art
Within the Asian Art Collection are Hindu and Buddhist sculptures from South and Southeast Asia and secular paintings, ceramics, textiles and decorative objects from the Far East. Of great significance is the collection’s sculpture from the Chinese Ming dynasty, an Ayutthaya period Walking Buddha from Thailand and a 20th century Shiko Munakata Japanese woodblock print.
African, Oceanic and New World Art
The Museum’s African, Oceanic and New World Art Collection is comprised of over 2,000 objects from many cultures. Objects from the Asmat people of New Guinea form the core of the collection. Pre-Columbian objects such as Mayan terracotta funerary figures from Jaina Island are also included in the collection. American Indian holdings include Navajo weavings, Pueblo pottery and Northwest Coast masks such as the Raven Mask from the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia.
European Art
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ European Art Collection represents a millennium of artistic creation. Highlights of the collection include works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Marie-Louise-Elisabeth Vigée le Brun, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Hyacinthe Rigaud, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
American Art
Artistic movements from the 18th through 20th centuries are represented in the American Art Collection and include works by Benjamin West, James Peale, John Singer Sargent, and Thomas Cole. Highlights of the collection include works by artists who painted in Utah and the American West such LeConte Stewart, Maynard Dixon, and Edgar Payne.
Modern and Contemporary Art
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts actively collects art from the 20th and 21st centuries. Currently, the Modern and Contemporary Art Collection is comprised of works by Robert Arneson, Gene Davis, Helen Frankenthaler, Alex Katz, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Robert Smithson, and Wayne Thiebaud.
Photography
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ Photography Collection ranges in materials and techniques and spans the entire history of the medium. Featured works include salt paper prints from the 19th and 20th century albumen prints as well as modern works by photographers Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Weegee and Jerry Uelsmann.
Dining in the Museum Café
Relax at the Museum Café serving snacks and lunch as well as hot and cold beverages. Indoor and outdoor seating at the Museum Café is available.
Shopping in the Museum Store
Be sure to stop by the Museum Store. Art-inspired gifts, books, cards and art activities for children and adults, many of which are made by local artists and artists from around the world, are available to purchase.
- The Utah Museum of Fine Arts is ADA complaint. A wheelchair is available for use from the Museum’s Visitor Service Desk.
- Non-flash photography is permitted for personal, non-commercial use.
- Written self guides are available to check out from the front desk and provide helpful information that can assist in planning your time at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.