Women to the Front: Perspectives on Equality, Gender, and Activism

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah welcomes the public back to the galleries on Wednesday, August 26. For everyone’s safety, the visitor experience will look and feel a little different, and all group activities—including new digital learning opportunities—will be offered online only.

The Museum’s top priority is to keep visitors and staff safe and healthy by preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building.

Because circumstances may change at any time, visitors should check umfa.utah.edu/COVID-19 for complete and up-to-date information before they visit. Visitors may also call the UMFA welcome desk at 801.581.7332.

Here are the details:

UMFA members, docents and volunteers, and essential healthcare workers are invited to early reopening on Wednesday, August 19 through Friday, August 21. Admission will be free on those days.

New operating hours are Wednesdays through Fridays, noon to 5 pm. Seniors and high-risk visitors are invited to visit on these days between 11 am and noon.

Visitors and staff will be required to wear face coverings and maintain the recommended social distance of six feet between themselves and other visitors or household groups, in accordance with the University’s COVID-19 policy.

Visitors and staff may enter the building only if they’re healthy.

Visitors are strongly encouraged to reserve tickets in advance at umfa.utah.edu/visit. Tickets may also be purchased at the welcome desk upon arrival—but to guarantee entry, advanced tickets are recommended.

Visitor capacity will be limited to 100 guests at a time, and no groups larger than 10 will be admitted.

Touchpoints have been minimized, cleaning protocols are enhanced, and the building’s HVAC system has been assessed by U facilities experts and exceeds all Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines.

While group tours and classroom visits are on pause, the UMFA offers new digital resources and tours, as well as new distance learning opportunities and digital classroom visits for K–12 educators and U professors.

All UMFA events and programs will be held online until further notice. Please visit the event calendar at https://umfa.utah.edu/events.

The Museum Store and Café
The Museum Store will be open Wednesday through Friday during Museum hours. The Museum Café will be open Monday through Friday for beverage service only.

What’s On View
The UMFA has extended the run of Beyond the Divide: Merchant, Artist, Samurai in Edo Japan, a popular exhibition drawn from the Museum’s collection of Japanese art. Visitors can also see Utah Women Working for Better Days!, a celebration of voting rights anniversaries that opened just a week before the Museum closed on March 13. Four spectacular paintings by renowned artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Thomas Moran, Alma Thomas, and Diego Rivera, on loan from national institutions, also remain on view. For information on all current temporary exhibitions, please visit https://umfa.utah.edu/temporary.

What’s Online
Visit https://umfa.utah.edu/museum-at-home for digital art-inspired content and art-making activities.

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The year 2020 marks two milestone celebrations of women’s suffrage: the 150th anniversary of Utah women becoming the first to vote in the modern nation, and the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment that gave women in the U.S. the right to vote. To commemorate these events, the Department of Heritage & Arts and the Utah Division of Arts & Museums presents the exhibition Women to the Front: Perspectives on Equality, Gender, and Activism.

This VIRTUAL exhibition features 15 contemporary artists whose practice areas include photography, installation, painting, performance, illustration, drawing, and printmaking. Their work informs, but by no means defines, the colossal role of women in contemporary art and culture.  Participating artists include Erin Coleman, Céline Downen, Annelise Duque, Lindsay Frei, Jamie Harper, Rachel Henriksen, Stephanie Leitch, Kylie Millward, Lis Pardoe, Wren Ross, Denae Shanidiin, Fazilat Soukhakian, Marcela Torres, Mary Toscano, and Jaclyn Wright.

https://utahvisualarts.omeka.net/

Curators: Nancy Rivera and Scotti Hill

*Featured image: Jamie Harper, Valley, Inkjet print, 2019