Image: Justin Hackworth. Courtesy Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah.
The Springville Museum of Art opens ‘Contemporary Portraiture’ on 27 August 2026. The exhibition remains on view at the museum in Springville, Utah, through 23 July 2027.
The museum frames portraiture as an act of interpretation rather than documentation, and treats each artistic decision — medium, style, setting — as evidence of the relationship between artist and sitter, and between the portrait and the audience it was made for. The works are in paint, film and clay.
The show’s animating question is the tension between public and private portraiture: portraits made to project a public image against those made to hold on to a person or a moment. According to the museum, the most compelling examples sit somewhere between the two, where identity reads as layered rather than fixed.
The museum describes the exhibition as gathering over 20 master artists and names twenty: Pamela Beach, Blair Buswell, Casey Childs, Caitlin Connolly, John Darley, Nicole Hill Gerulat, Justin Hackworth, Michael Hall, Ben Hammond, Jeff Hein, Jared Jakins, Randall Lake, Jiyoun Lee-Lodge, Howard Lyon, Santiago Michalek, Colby Sanford, Mary Sauer, Fazilat Soukhakian, Marlena Wild and Kwani Povi Winder. Four works are identified on the exhibition page: Colby Sanford’s ‘Ocean Heart’ (2021), Caitlin Connolly’s ‘mother painting’ (2019), Santiago Michalek’s ‘It’s Time - 10 Years Gone’ (2023) and John Darley’s ‘Grandfather’ (2017).
The Springville Museum of Art is at 126 East 400 South, Springville, Utah. It opens Monday from 6 to 8 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and is closed on Sundays and holidays.
