Celebrate the opening of Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea. Preview this stunning exhibition examining the perspectives of 48 modern and contemporary artists who offer a broader and more inclusive view of the American West.

Please support the UMFA, and this project, by attending the event. If you cannot attend, please consider sending a donation.

You can also purchase by calling 801.585.0464, or emailing rsvp@umfa.utah.edu. $100 per person.

Many Wests: Artist Shape and American Idea is the result of a partnership among The Smithsonian American Art Museum (DC), The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (OR), the Boise Art Museum (ID), The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UT) and the Whatcom Museum (WA). Drawn from the permanent collections of these museums, the exhibition invites us to explore new ways of understanding this essential region and construct in the U.S. imagination. It shows how artists bring to light suppressed or lesser-known histories/stories of the past and present, how they challenge old clichés and entrenched stereotypes, and how they present the American West as a site of on-going lived histories and migrations. IMAGE: Jacob Lawrence, The Builders (detail), 1980, gouache on paper. Whatcom Museum Permanent Collection. Gift of the Washington Art Consortium through gift of Safeco Insurance, a member of the Liberty Mutual Group EXL.2021.1.3 © 2022 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea is one in a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the Art Bridges Initiative.

Presenting Sponsor:
Sue & Al Landon

Curatorial Sponsors:
The George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation
The Wieler Family Private Foundation Trust

Installation Sponsor:
Stephanie & Tim Harpst

Programming Sponsor:
Art Bridges Foundation Preview Party Hosts:
Sue & Al Landon