Utah
‘Preserving the art of Utah culture’: Utah-artist museum opens in Salt Lake City
SALT LAKE CITY — A new art museum located in the historic B’nai Israel Temple in downtown Salt Lake City, dedicated to preserving Utah culture and providing a platform for Utah artists, is opening.
The Salt Lake Art Museum, 249 S. 400 East, aims to highlight both historic and contemporary Utah artists while also promoting thoughtful conversations on modern topics. It is the first new art museum to open in the city in more than 40 years.
“Opening the Salt Lake Art Museum is a defining moment for our state’s cultural landscape,” said Chris Jensen, museum executive director.
While the official grand opening of the museum isn’t until July 24, it has already begun hosting events and programming, including an interactive “Make Your Mark” installation where community members can trace their silhouettes onto the walls.
“The project serves as both an introduction to the museum and a living time capsule capturing the voices and identities of the community in the weeks leading up to the grand opening,” a statement from the museum said.
The Salt Lake Art Museum was founded by Micah Christensen, a distinguished art historian based in Salt Lake City. About a year ago, Christensen contacted Jensen, who has a background in nonprofits and cultural and historical preservation, to discuss purchasing the B’nai Israel Temple to create a museum.
The focus of the museum would be to elevate Utah artists, Utah art collections and art created in Utah.
“Utah is home to an incredible number of artists, yet we’ve long lacked a dedicated space to fully celebrate their work. This museum changes that. It’s a place where Utah artists are centered, their stories are elevated and our community can come together to experience the power of art,” Jensen said.
The museum began its programming with a Utah Master Series, which celebrates Utah’s most influential visual artists and recognizes their contributions to the state’s cultural legacy.
“It’s almost like a hall of fame of Utah artists,” Jensen explained.
The first three artists to be part of the exhibition were Galina Perova, Stanley Wanlass and Ben Hammond. Each artist had a dedicated night at the museum, where their work was displayed and they discussed their art-making process and the arts in Utah.
One of the museum’s opening exhibitions will be on Albert Bierstadt, a famous painter in the late 1800s who painted the American West. He spent three weeks painting in Utah and the museum will display 25 of his approximately 30 Utah landscapes he created.
To make the gallery extra special, the museum will have modern pictures of the same landscapes alongside each painting.
“It’s really a tale of how human interaction changes landscape and how our landscapes in Utah have changed since the 1800s. So that is really exciting and it’s the first of its kind on Albert Bierstadt,” he said.
The museum will also have exhibits on Pilar Pobil, a Spanish-born immigrant who self-taught herself painting and sculpture and died in 2024, and a show on the Julia Reagan billboards and how they intersected with pop culture and art in Utah.
Additionally, the museum’s opening exhibitions will include a gallery on the history of the B’nai Israel Temple, which was completed in 1891, two years before the Salt Lake Temple was finished.
Museums preserve the culture of whatever they are targeting, Jensen said. The Salt Lake Art Museum aims to preserve Utah’s art culture and its communities, he added.
There are many great artists from Utah who are famous around the world but unknown within their home state, and this museum hopes to change that, Jensen said.
“We have more artists here per capita than anywhere in the U.S., and it’s time that we shine a light on it and celebrate it. And that goes all the way from arts and crafts up to fine art,” he said.
He hopes people are proud of how much quality art comes from our state. When people come to the museum, they support great Utah artists and have a chance to learn more about the place they call home.
Art can be a great avenue to discuss modern issues, such as immigration, climate change and discrimination, through both historical and contemporary lenses, Jensen said. For example, the Salt Lake Art Museum plans to do a show soon on the Great Salt Lake and host a plein air competition at the lake.
“I want people to think of everything that’s happening in our modern world when they come through here and to see themselves reflected in that and how they should be reacting to it,” he said.
Overall, Jensen hopes people appreciate and support art museums as they “tell the story of us as a species.”
“When you go to a museum, it’s a chance to reflect on what we were and what we have become — things lost and things improved. So I really think it’s important because it tells us the greater story of humanity,” Jensen said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
WASHINGTON, Washington County — Classic car collectors gathered Friday morning for a procession in remembrance of Dennis “Deny” Rutkoskie, who died while driving his Model T Ford last month.
The procession was held on what would have been Rutkoskie’s 85th birthday. According to friends, he was a well-known figure in the classic-car collecting community in southern Utah and owned more than 20 classic cars, which he showcased at his shop in Washington.
Longtime friend Doug Chambers brought his 2006 Ford Mustang to the event and said that the procession was less about cars and more about honoring the great man Rutkoskie truly was.
“He was always a great guy, and every week we would meet at Cracker Barrel for what we called, Hot Rod Hangout,” Chambers said. “He would drive a different car every time, it might be a Rolls-Royce one week, and the next week it would be the Model T, or it could be one of his 1904 racers.
“(Losing Deny) was a shock — just a gut punch,” he added. “Myself and my friends couldn’t believe it was real, and then we started seeing pictures on social media and KSL. It’s hard to believe. … When we lose someone, it’s really hard.”
The procession, which included upwards of 50 classic cars, started at the Walmart in Washington City and went down Washington Fields Road all the way to Rutkoskie’s car museum. It was led by local law enforcement and spearheaded by friends such as Tony Lonnett, president of the Desert Rodders Car Club of Southwest Utah.
Lonnett spoke of Rutkoskie’s generosity and reflected on spending time with him during the annual Shop With a Cop event, to which Rutkoskie was a large donor.
“This is a sad event, but it’s going to be really joyous,” he said. “(The procession) shows respect for a man who had the love of cars and enjoyed them immensely. (Deny’s) the kind of guy who made me reflect on how to be a better man. That’s Denny.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food is tracking cases of New World Screwworm after the first U.S. case since 1968 was detected in Texas.
The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food described New World Screwworm as a fly. The fly’s larvae burrow into the living tissue of warm-blooded animals, causing large wounds and even death in untreated animals.
Officials said the fly was eradicated from the United States in the late 60s. However, an increase in flies in Central America in recent years led to the discovery of New World Screwworm in Mexico and has since spread into the States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed on Wednesday that a three-week-old calf in Texas was carrying the fly’s larvae.
According to UDAF, if New World Screwworm spreads in the United States, it could cost billions in treatment costs, production, and losses.
“It is critical for animal owners and veterinarians to be aware of the signs of NWS and to report any suspicious cases immediately to the State Veterinarian’s office,” UDAF said in a statement.
Signs include discomfort, draining or enlarging wounds, and larvae or eggs in or around body openings, such as the nose and ears. The New World Screwworm most commonly affects livestock, pets, and wildlife and, in very rare cases, people and birds.
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SANTAQUIN — A mother is accused of leaving her young child in a hot car in 2019, resulting in the toddler’s death.
Amy Kay Bethers, 29, was charged Thursday in 4th District Court with child abuse homicide, a first-degree felony.
On Aug. 13, 2019, about 5:45 p.m., Bethers brought her 6-month-old son – identified in court documents only as W.T. – to Mountain View Hospital. An obituary identifies the toddler as Wade Ron Taylor.
The boy’s “jaw was locked tight in the onset of rigor mortis, he was warm to the touch, he had sloughing of the skin on his scalp, face, ear and chest, his skin was discolored and mottled, and (his) eyes were open with dryness over the cornea and fixated pupils,” according to charging documents. The toddler’s body temperature was recorded at 109.8 degrees Fahrenheit and he was pronounced deceased about 6:15 p.m.
Doctors “believed that W.T.’s death was probably related to being in a hot environment for too long,” the charges state.
Bethers told police she was driving with her child to a storage unit in Santaquin “when she noticed W.T. was not as ‘wiggly and chattery’ as usual, so she ‘rolled down the windows some more’ and turned around to go home,” according to the charges.
Bethers told police she noticed he was “getting discolored” and his lips turning purple, “and he started ‘getting stiff’ and drooling,” the charges state.
She told investigators that she had been driving for two to three hours and her vehicle did not have air conditioning. Temperatures that day reached about 93 degrees Fahrenheit.
W.T.’s “immediate cause of death was hyperthermia,” but the manner “‘could not be determined’ because her findings from the autopsy were not consistent with Bether’s accounting of events,” according to the charges.
A doctor later concluded “that under conditions where both windows were up and the vehicle was traveling 25 mph, W.T.’s temperature could reach 109.8 degrees in 50-70 minutes; under conditions where both windows were up and the vehicle was traveling 45 mph, W.T.’s temperature could reach 109.8 degrees in 70-150 minutes; under conditions where both windows were up and the vehicle was traveling 65 mph, there would be little to no change in W.T.’s temperature during anytime of the day. (The doctor) concluded that under conditions where the vehicle was parked in the sun and both windows were closed, W.T.’s temperature could reach 109.8 degrees in 40-50 minutes; under conditions where the vehicle was parked in the shade and both windows were closed, there would be no change in W.T.’s temperature,” the charges state.
Court documents do not explain why it took several years to follow up on the charges.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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