Collecting For the Future

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How does a museum build a collection? Why do museums choose specific objects to steward for future generations? Explore these questions and more with Marcia and John Price Executive Director Gretchen Dietrich, and UMFA curators Alisa McCusker, Emily Lawhead, and Luke Kelly.

The latest special exhibition at the UMFA, For the Future, celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Marcia and John Price Museum Building and showcases some of the UMFA’s most notable art acquisitions of the past 25 years. Since opening the doors to the Marcia and John Price Museum Building in 2001, the UMFA’s collection has grown by an incredible 25 percent, totaling more than 22,000 works of art today.

The UMFA preserves this remarkable collection, spanning 5,000 years of human creativity from around the world, in the public trust for the future enjoyment and enlightenment of all generations to come. Get a behind-the-scenes look at collecting at the UMFA, and join the conversation about the future!

Speakers:
- Gretchen Dietrich — Marcia & John Price Executive Director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, serving in the position since 2009. Dietrich began her career more than 35 years ago as a museum educator and has held positions at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 2015–2018 Dietrich served on the board of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and oversaw the AAMD’s Education & Community Issues Committee. Since 2019 she has served on the Board of Directors of the Art Bridges Foundation.

• Alisa McCusker, PhD — Senior Curator and Curator of European and American Art at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. She is a specialist in Renaissance art and works on paper and has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions on topics including medieval and early modern book illustration, Japanese woodblock prints, American Regionalism, and contemporary art in the American West. Previously she served as Curator of European and American Art at the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri. She holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Arts in art history and museum studies from the joint program between Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She received a Fulbright full-year fellowship to Germany for her dissertation research.

• Emily Lawhead, PhD — Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. She holds a BA in Comparative Cultural Studies from Northern Arizona University, an MA in Museum Studies from the University of San Francisco, and a PhD in the History of Art & Architecture from the University of Oregon. Her research explores intersections of art and technology, with recent publications on topics including interactive digital art, immersive exhibitions, and the history of AI art. At the UMFA, Emily spearheads the salt exhibition series, site-specific commissions in the Great Hall, and the Museum’s photography, new media, and modern and contemporary art collections.

• Luke Kelly — Associate Curator of Collections at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. In his 25th year at the museum, he oversees the Asian and archaeological collections. Luke has curated small and large-scale shows from the Asian and Asian-American collections including the 2020 exhibition Beyond the Divide and the 2024 installation Chiura Obata Layer by Layer.