Looking Backward & Forward
Forty Years with NEHMA & What’s Next
February 5, 2022 - May 6, 2023
The focus of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art collection in on twentieth and
twenty-first century art of the western United States. It consists of over 5,500 objects
with large concentrations of paintings, sculpture, works on paper, mixed-media, ceramics,
and photography. Two years after the Museum was founded the collection was established
with 1800 acquisitions, a significant part of which was given by the Museum’s namesake,
Nora Eccles Harrison. Since that time many purchase acquisitions have been made with
Marie Eccles Caine Foundation and Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation funds.
Looking Backward
In celebration of the opening of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum in 1982, forty years
ago, the Museum is organizing an exhibition of forty works of art from the collection.
In an effort to describe the evolution of its growth, one work of art will represent
each year of the past forty years of the collection acquisitions.
Artists included in this part of the exhibition are the following.
Artists:
Leo Amino
Eleanor Antin
Uta Barth
Ben Berlin
Forrest Bess
Jessie Arms Botke
Nancy Buchana
Cameron
Eduardo Carrillo
Vija Celmins
Grace Clements
Harold Cohen
Bruce Conner
Edward Corbett
Imogen Cunningham
Tony DeLap
Claire Falkenstein
Loser Feitelson
Chris Finley
Karla Klarin
Hung Liu
Seymour Locks
Daniel Martinez
Hilda Deutsch Morris
Lee Mullican
Irving Norman
Pat O'Neill
Deborah Remington
Edward Ruscha
Ilene Segalove
Clay Spohn
Lew Thomas
Joyce Treiman
Horace Clifford Westermann
William T. Wiley
Jenifer K. Wofford
Beatrice Wood
Hung Liu
Mongolia’s Moon, 2004
Hand-embellished print
34.5 x 34.875 x 1.5 inches
Gift of Driek and Michael Zirinsky
Image © Estate of Hung Liu
Looking Forward
George C. Wanlass, the great-nephew of NEHMA’s namesake, Nora Eccles Harrison, has
carefully purchased work for the Museum through the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation
and the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation for thirty-six years. Concurrently, he built
his own collection which today numbers over 700 works of art. Formed in a parallel
time frame and from similar sources and interests, the two collections reinforce each
other and can be thought of as two sides of the same coin.
The first work of art that George C. Wanlass purchased through the Marie Eccles Caine
Foundation was the Mahonri Young bronze sculpture Right to the Jaw, 1926. That gift was made in 1985, one year after the Museum’s collection began.
Having been collecting since 1973, Wanlass, who studied history at Amherst College,
the University of Kansas and Stanford University, started out with an interest in
the early art of Utah, an area that he recognized as being seriously underappreciated.
In Young’s work, Wanlass saw the strivings of an artist with modernist leanings, and
Wanlass proceeded to acquire a number of his works, including what the artist thought
of as his first “Impressionist” painting. Nine of Young’s works of art that Wanlass
acquired are in the Looking Forward component of this two-part exhibition. Although already part of the NEHMA collection,
Right to the Jaw will also be included in the show.
This part of the exhibition consists of 36 pieces by the following twenty early Utah
artists.
Artists:
- Donald Beauregard
- Henry L.A. Culmer
- William Crawford
- Leo Fairbanks
- Paul Fjellboe
- Irene Fletcher
- Mabel Frazer
- John Hafen
- James T. Harwood
- Francis Horspool
- Waldo Midgley
- Rueben Reynolds
- Lee Greene Richards
- Howell Rosenbaum
- Jack Sears
- Lawrence Squires
- LeConte Stewart
- Florence Ware
- Alma B. Wright
- Mahonri Young
Through Mr. Wanlass’ plans to gift his collection to the museum, adding these works by early Utah artists to the Museum’s collection will greatly enhance the Museum’s holdings from this period. In the context of Wanlass’ collection, however, they are a small component of a much larger collection that chronicles art history of the Western United States over the last 120 years.
Explore the Exhibition
This exhibition and programming have been made possible through the support of the
Utah Division of Arts & Museums, with funding from the State of Utah.
Additional support provided by the Cache Valley Visitors Bureau.
