CEDAR CITY — A traveling art exhibition celebrating the 125th anniversary of Utah Division of Arts & Museums is now on display within Cedar City Council chambers and in the hallway just outside the room.
The exhibit, which features some two dozen works that are part of the state’s Alice Merrill Horne Art Collection, will be on free public display in Cedar City’s city offices until May 28.
Donna Law, a Cedar City resident who is now the executive director of the Utah Department of Cultural and Community Engagement, said the exhibition is a tribute to Horne’s legacy.
“We’re here today to celebrate the legacy of Alice Merrill Horne, the fourth woman to serve in the Utah State Legislature, who in 1899 drafted and passed Utah’s ‘Art Bill,’” Law said, adding that the legislation made Utah the first state in the country to have its own arts agency.
“Rep. Horne was innovative in establishing a state art collection, which now honors her legacy in the title: State of Utah Alice Merrill Horne Art Collection,” Law added.
“We continue to build the collection based on aesthetic quality, representation of artistic styles, cultures and periods in Utah’s visual art history, as well as the support of Utah’s living artists,” Law said. “The purpose of this collection is for the curation, exhibition, interpretation, and preservation of a collection of art which includes fine art, public art and folk art.”
Quoting from a proclamation made by Gov. Spencer Cox earlier this year commemorating the 125th anniversary of Utah Arts & Museums, Law noted that Utah’s cultural industry contributes $14.7 billion annually to the state’s economy, which puts Utah third in the nation for total art and cultural value added to the state’s economy
“Arts and museums inspire and connect people and communities across the great state of Utah, encouraging a vibrant and culturally engaged state,” Law noted.
Joining Law at the exhibition’s kickoff event on April 24 were Cedar City resident Natalie Young, who is a Utah Arts & Museums board member; Utah Division of Arts & Museums deputy director Natalie Petersen; exhibit curator and coordinator Fletcher Booth, who hung up the pieces; and Cedar City Councilman R. Scott Phillips.
Division officials said the traveling exhibition program places between 15-18 unique exhibitions annually in approximately 75 locations around the state. For more information about the traveling exhibition program, click here.
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