Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Marcia & John Price Museum Building
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| Established | May 6, 1951 |
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| Location | Marcia & John Price Museum Building Salt Lake City, Utah |
| Coordinates | 40°45′37″N 111°50′36″W / 40.7602°N 111.8432°W |
| Type | Art museum |
| Director | Gretchen Dietrich |
| Website | UMFA's Official Website |
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is the region's primary resource for culture and visual arts. It is located in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building in Salt Lake City, Utah on the University of Utah campus near Rice–Eccles Stadium. Works of art are displayed on a rotating basis. It is a university and state art museum.
UMFA galleries are temporarily closed for remodeling and reinstallation and will reopen August 26, 2017. Many free public programs are continuing through the closure period, including the museum's popular Third Saturday for families, educational outreach, and ARTLandish: Land Art, Landscape, and the Environment. The UMFA's Dumke Auditorium, museum store, and museum cafe have reopened to the public.
UMFA is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It has a cafe and store located inside the building along with more than 20 galleries. The museums permanent art collections include over 17,000 works of art. The different cultures represented include African, Oceanic and the New World, Asian, European, American, and the Ancient and Classical World.
The creation of a formal art gallery on the top floor of the University of Utah's Park Building in the early 1900s marks the beginning of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. In the beginning, paintings by local artists filled this three-room gallery. Through the next six decades, the art department at the University of Utah received major art gifts and specific requests from donors to remodel the gallery into a museum. After the renovation of the gallery was finished, the University’s president, A. Ray Olpin, established it as the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on May 6, 1951. In 1967, Frank Sanquineti was appointed as the first professional director. By this time, the museum had entered a new period of growth which resulted in the building of a new museum.
After the museum’s relocation in 1970, its goal was to expand its collections, and the Annual Friends of the Art Museum Acquisition Fund was formed. Over the years this annual fund has helped support the expansion of the museum’s collections and its ability to offer art education programs. Due to donations from patrons, local and national foundations, the University community, and the citizens of the State of Utah, the UMFA’s collection now encompasses 5,200 years of artistic creativity. Since the mid-1900s, when the collection was around 800 objects, it has grown to over 13,000 art objects. This huge expansion required the building of yet another museum, and construction of a new 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) building was started in 1997. The UMFA opened in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building on June 2, 2001, and David Dee was appointed Executive Director the following year.
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