Springville Museum of Art

There are the great art galleries of the world—The Louvre, The Prado, Hermitage Museum—and there is the Springville Museum of Art (SMA). Although just a morsel in size when compared with the others, the SMA has a very satisfying portion.
 
Located in Springville, Utah, this museum has become a jewel of what has become known as “Art City.” The main gallery fits on one level and it is easily visited in 1-2 hours. For me, this is refreshing when compared to the larger galleries of Europe, where a couple hours would only scratch the surface.
 
I recently visited with my three teenage daughters who enjoyed the wide selection. Jenna liked the sculpture of Sacajawea carrying a baby on her back and Savanah the oversized carton filled with stiffened dress ties instead of french fries.
 

"They are Writing about Us in Pravda" by Aleksei Aleksandrovich Vasilev.

For me, I loved the mixture of local paintings alongside a collection of Russian masterpieces. In one room you will find a dusty stampede of cowboys on canvas, while in the other a scene from the Bolshevik Revolution or an image from Stalin's funeral.
 

One particular work that stands out is an oil painting from artist Engels Vasilevich Kozlv entitled Russian Mother Baking Bread. It depicts a typical Russian woman with scarf wrapped over her head placing a fat loaf of khleb, or bread, into a traditional oven called a Russkaya Pech. A young blond-headed child with freckles on his cheeks is staring straight at the spectator. I like this scene because it captures a glimpse of a daily task that was carried out all along the countryside.
 

"Portrait of a Villager, Mikhailo Gulyaev" by Arkadi Aleksandrovich Plastov.

In the same room there is a painting by Aleksei Aleksandrovich Vasilev of a group of collective farm workers taking a break on a blanket, eating watermelon and reading a Soviet newspaper. They appear to be relaxed and enjoying themselves. The paper they read, the Pravda, is translated as “truth” and was the primary voice of the Bolshevik Party, used to unite the people and promote Soviet ideals. One can't help but to wonder if a painting like this was used as propaganda.
 
When I walk through the halls of this section of the museum, I find that I am craving to visit St. Petersburg, to read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, to listen to Tchaikovsky and Shostakovitch. The former Soviet Union, although marred by the black swath of Communism, is a country with a rich heritage of art.
 

"Riders of the Range" by Paul Salisbury.

In another wing of the museum the visitor is conveyed to the other side of the world. They are brought home to the West.
 
Entering the hall there is a large oil on canvas, a dusty scene entitled, Hereford Roundup, by Minerva Teichert. The spectacle is likely a recollection of her days growing up on a ranch in Cokeville, Wyoming.
 

There are also depictions of the Grand Canyon, a Navajo drinking Coke at the fair, two men gleaning potatoes from a field, an abandoned barn, a bronze statue of Kit Carson. Paul Salisbury from Richfield, Utah paints a simple oil on canvas entitled, Riders of the Range. Two cowboys wearing chaps are ready to mount their horses and continue the never-ending tasking of caring for their cattle. There are low-lying mountains in the background and a valley filled with sage brush. This could be anywhere in Utah.
 

One of the artists that caught my attention was Sophie Soprano, whom I later learned was a nom de plume for Lynn Farrar. She has several paintings in the gallery, and most seem to have a common theme of a simple life of days gone by—of horses and orchards and white picket fences, with houses and old trucks and dirt roads. Everything seems to be collapsing into each other, appearing abstract, yet evoking a desire to enter her world. Dogs, cats, children and sheep play in the yard or garden. It is a magical place that conjures nostalgia.
 
A common thread for most of the work at SMA is that it depicts something simple, whether it is baking a loaf of bread or the quiet portrait of a villager. I think that all of us yearn for a life much less complicated than the chaos the world provides. Viewing this art gives us a chance to reflect on our own lives and decide what our portrait would look like. ♠