• Venue

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    Salt Lake Art Center

    Alta Rawlins Jensen is, single-handedly, the person most responsible for the foundation of the Salt Lake Art Center. An activist and visionary, she conceived of a contemporary art center for Salt Lake City and Utah. She co-founded the Art Barn Association in 1931 with those who shared her dream, and served as the first President.

    Beginning in 1932, the Great Depression was under way and spirits were low, the Art Barn began exhibiting some of the most avant garde art and artists from Utah, the western United States, and from the national and international scene.

    While Utah artists such as Joseph A. F. Everett, J.T. Harwood, LeConte Stewart, Alvin Gittins, and Waldo Midgley were exhibited in the galleries with some frequency, there was even more focus on the necessity to introduce the community to artists and artwork outside Utah. These artists included, Maynard Dixon, Vincent Van Gogh, Diego Rivera, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Mardsen Hartley. It was also not unusual to find numerous exhibitions curated by galleries or museums in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco in the galleries.

    For the first thirty years, the Art Barn's activities were managed entirely by volunteers, with professional artists hired to teach classes. But following a name change to Salt Lake Art Center in 1958, and the hiring of James Haseltine, its first paid full-time director in 1961, the all-volunteer organization had a professional leadership. Under the direction of Haseltine, the Salt Lake Art Center focused more in-depth on the Abstract Expressionism, architecture, and sculpture.

    A major move in the 1979 from the Art Barn, near the University of Utah campus, to its current location, one of the buildings in the Bicentennial Arts Complex, the Salt Lake Art Center found itself in the heart of the downtown core.

    In 1994 the Art Center underwent its first and only major outdoor renovation; the facade was changed to its current appearance with a new ramp, revolving doors and the glass pyramid atop the entrance.

    Ric Collier was installed as Director in August, 1996, and has since become the longest-tenured Director in the Salt Lake Art Center's history.

    Today, the Salt Lake Art Center operates with a staff of professionals now numbering ten, and a six-figured budget; with a unique mission statement that embraces civil, social, and aesthetic issues in contemporary art; and with an outstanding reputation in Utah, and the nation for exhibitions that challenge visitors to reevaluate assumptions about contemporary culture.

    The Salt Lake Art Center looks back on its 75 year history, and celebrates Mrs. Jensen commitment to showcases contemporary art in our community, and the long line of volunteers, artist, community member, and staff, who have kept her vision alive. The Salt Lake Art Center remains focused on being a catalyst for contemporary art.

    • Contact Info

      Salt Lake Art Center

      20 South West Temple
      Salt Lake City, UT 84101

      Phone: (801)328-4201

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