{"id":103594,"date":"2026-06-08T10:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T17:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=103594"},"modified":"2026-06-09T10:56:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:56:00","slug":"kingsbury-hall-renovation-and-the-florence-ware-murals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/kingsbury-hall-renovation-and-the-florence-ware-murals\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingsbury Hall Renovation and the Florence Ware Murals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The first question that came to mind when we heard Kingsbury Hall was planning a renovation was, “What about the murals?”<\/p>\n

UtahPresents and the University of Utah announced last month the allocation of $3 million in state funding for interior renovations at Kingsbury Hall, the 1,900-seat historic theater at the center of the University of Utah campus. The primary focus is replacing the audience seating, with related elements like flooring and aisle lighting also under consideration. Construction is anticipated between June and August of 2027.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the Florence Ware WPA murals would survive the project, UtahPresents confirmed without hesitation: the murals will be preserved and protected. Kingsbury Hall is a registered historic building, and the project will be guided by historic preservation best practices.<\/p>\n

Ware’s “History of Drama” commission was a coveted Works Progress Administration project, and she was one of the only women artists in Utah to receive work from the Federal Art Project. The paintings took five years to complete under conditions Ware herself described as “adverse.” The work was too large for her studio, so she worked in a barnlike structure where she “froze in the winter and cooked in the summer.” When WPA funding stopped mid-project, she continued on her own time. The murals depict the history of drama from Ware’s American perspective, ranging across Africa, Egypt, Medieval Europe, and Renaissance England, and they have greeted audiences from those walls for nearly ninety years.<\/p>\n

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By the mid-1940s, Ware had painted at least 18 murals across Utah, Wyoming, and Wisconsin, but the Kingsbury commission was her most celebrated. As Emily Larsen wrote in these pages in 2020<\/a>, the panels placed Ware in rare company\u2014an artist unafraid of lofty, difficult subject matter at a time when women were routinely relegated to smaller, more domestic work. Tom Alder, writing here in 2007<\/a>, noted that the recently deceased Utah artist Ted Wassmer, one of Ware’s students, modeled for the Kingsbury compositions\u2014and urged anyone who hadn’t stood in front of the murals to go have “a breathtaking experience.”<\/p>\n

The renovation gives people a reason to go look before the scaffolding goes up. It also arrives at a significant moment for the hall itself. Kingsbury opened its doors in 1930, meaning the centennial is four years out, and UtahPresents is already thinking about how to mark it. Chloe Jones, Assistant Dean for Arts & Creative Engagement and Executive Director of UtahPresents, describes the centennial as “an opportunity to look both backwards and forwards, exploring the rich history of the theater while envisioning its future,” with plans for live performances and, she says, “storytelling from beyond the stage.”<\/p>\n

Jones describes Kingsbury as “far more than a building\u2014one of Utah’s foundational gathering places and a wellspring of creativity,” a place that has “helped shape Utah into a more vibrant and internationally connected place, by bringing world-class artists to Salt Lake City while nurturing generations of local artists and arts organizations.” She notes the hall holds an emotional place in Utah life that few venues can claim: “For many Utahns, it’s where they saw their first concert or stepped onto a stage for the first time; it’s where they graduated, and their kids and grandkids too.”<\/p>\n