{"id":105621,"date":"2026-09-08T06:09:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=105621"},"modified":"2026-09-11T06:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T13:20:24","slug":"guava-jam-and-great-expectations-25-years-at-the-umfa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/guava-jam-and-great-expectations-25-years-at-the-umfa\/","title":{"rendered":"Guava Jam and Great Expectations: 25 Years at the UMFA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For the Future: Collecting at the UMFA 2001\u20132026<\/em> celebrates 25 years in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building. At right, Melissa Cody\u2019s Scaling the Caverns, 2023.<\/p><\/div>\n

When the Utah Museum of Fine Arts opened in the new Marcia and John Price Museum Building on the University of Utah campus in 2001, it seemed all anyone could talk about was the color. Frank Sanguinetti, the museum\u2019s longtime director and the driving force behind its new home, had been inspired by a visit to an art museum in Spain and decided the walls of the new UMFA should be \u201cGuava Jam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, there was more to talk about. The $18 million, 74,000-square-foot building, designed by Boston\u2019s Machado and Silvetti with Salt Lake City\u2019s Prescott Muir Architects, was a considerable architectural statement. The severity of the five blocklike volumes clad in patterned black and orange brick was deliberate: its massive forms borrowed from the big-box stores, warehouses and strip malls of Salt Lake City\u2019s automobile landscape. Inside, the architects draw on the courtyards, loggias and grand staircases of Venetian Renaissance palaces. A monumental staircase rises through the 55-foot-high central space toward the upstairs galleries and, ultimately, a window framing Mount Olympus. The contrast was deliberate. The new museum more than doubled the exhibition space of its predecessor, to more than 25,000 square feet. Writing in the Deseret News just before the June 2 opening, Dave Gagon called the building \u201ca work of art in and of itself\u2014a 74,000-square-foot work of art.\u201d Architectural organizations seemed to agree: the building had already collected two awards before its doors opened. For years, though, people continued to comment on the color.<\/p>\n

Wall colors are easy enough to change. Over the years Guava Jam gave way to deep cranberries, slate blue, purple and rose, a palette of greens running from pastel to teal, and, when the art called for it, the traditional off-white.<\/p>\n