Eternal Progress, a bas-relief sculpture by Avard Fairbanks, was commissioned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1933 to be displayed at the World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, that same year. The four-piece, 15-foot-wide and nearly eight-foot-tall piece was an attempt by the Church to tell its story to a worldwide audience and appeal to the fair’s theme of Century of Progress.
The fair came just more than 100 years after the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ in 1830. Fairbanks’ art was potentially seen by millions of people during the fair but has been seen by only a handful since then.
“This piece is currently on display for the first time as a whole sculpture since 1933,” said Riley M. Lorimer, director of the Church History Museum, as she stood in front of the massive sculpture at the opening of the museum’s newest art exhibit on Monday, Sept. 30.
The “Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art” exhibit includes 118 pieces of art curated by Heather Belnap, Ashlee Whitaker Evans and Brontë Hebdon. The Church History Museum and Center for Latter-day Saint Arts worked together over a five-year period to organize the show.
Mykal Urbina, executive director of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, said identifying the unique pieces for this exhibit was a challenge.
“I don’t envy our curators for their task of curating down the breadth of Latter-day Saint art into 118 pieces to represent our artistic tradition,” she said. “That’s not even one piece per year.”
Instead of displaying the artwork in a linear, timeline format from 1830 to today, the exhibit is divided into four sections, with art created across the 200 years in themes of memory and archive, individual and Church, sacred spaces and identity. This allows for the art created about a specific topic to be displayed as it was interpreted at various times in the Church’s history.
Lorimer said putting art together from one point in time to another would have been challenging.
“There are periods where we have less art,” she said, noting that early in the Church’s history and the middle of the 20th century saw a reduction in art created.
“Also, if you do it chronologically, the curators would have felt an obligation to include certain artists,” Lorimer said. “And then there’s the question of who do you include and who do you not?”
But organizing by theme allowed for some needed flexibility in showing artists from around the world with different perspectives on similar gospel themes.
On one wall, covered with depictions of the Savior, Lorimer pointed out that some of the paintings have been seen by many members of the Church, while others haven’t been seen by anyone outside of an artist’s family.
“All of these are giving a different view on Christ,” she said. Some come from a particular story in the scriptures, and others are more illustrative of His life and characteristics.
“In their different artistic languages, all of these artists are bearing common witness of Jesus Christ,” Lorimer said.
As she welcomed members of the media to the exhibit, Lorimer shared some of the remarks of the late President Ezra Taft Benson, who was the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles when he dedicated the Church History Museum on April 4, 1984.
President Benson said that those who visit the museum will “see that the Church draws from cultures around the world, yet unifies them with a common theology. … They will sense that it is the doctrine of the Church that provides inspiration to their artistic works and endeavors. They will also sense that our faith permeates everything we do.”
Lorimer said she sees the new exhibit as a fulfillment of President Benson’s vision 40 years ago.
Unity in purpose, diversity of expression
Looking at the exhibit as a whole, Lorimer thought back to an April 2013 general conference message from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, then the second counselor in the First Presidency, who said that followers of Jesus Christ should not come from “a single mold. … This would contradict the genius of God,” he said.
Lorimer said she thinks about that teaching as she walks through the galleries on the second floor of the Church History Museum, where this exhibit is housed.
She said that she sees a reflection of both unity and diversity — two things that Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said in his October 2020 general conference message are not opposites.
“What we have is a huge diversity through time and across the whole world of artists and their experiences, but they are unified in common purpose,” Lorimer said. “I see a reflection of the quest for Zion.”
“In a testimony meeting, not everything someone says is going to resonate with you,” Lorimer said. “But you can feel love for the sister at the pulpit even if she is saying something that isn’t the way you would express your faith.”
Anchored together in Jesus Christ
While most of the artists featured in the new exhibit are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some were not — including Harry Anderson. Anderson’s iconic painting “The Second Coming” hangs in many Latter-day Saint chapels around the world. Even though Anderson was not a member of the Church, his testimony of the Savior shines through his work, Lorimer said.
And visitors to the exhibit have a chance to see the ways other artists have expressed and anchored their testimonies of the Savior through art. One example comes from a couple who are both artists in Mexico City, Mexico — Ricardo Rendón and his wife, Georgina Bringas.
Rendón’s art installation is located next to Fairbanks’ Eternal Progress and may be a bit tougher to interpret for some visitors. But Rendón’s belief in the Savior and the principles He taught influence his art just as much as any other artist in the show.
“I’ve been practicing for a long time — almost 25 years now,” Rendón said as he put the finishing touches on his installation in the Church History Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 11. That practice shows up in this exhibit in the form of 32 metal anchors attached to the gallery’s wall to form a six-foot-wide circle. A thin metal cable wraps methodically around each anchor and crosses from one side of the shape to another, creating a geometric pattern. The cable is attached to a weighted plumb that rests nearly a foot below the circle’s circumference and settles against the gallery wall.
“The plumb bob is the main starting point to build something straight,” Rendón said. “It draws a line straight to the middle of the earth, so it’s connecting these two points — where I’m standing now and the center of the earth. And it’s constantly working, pulling toward that center of the earth.”
In this case, Rendón refers to the lines of his metal cable as a drawing. And he knows that his drawing’s lines can be straight only because of the anchor they are attached to.
“If I take this out — the plumb — everything falls down,” he said, motioning to all his piece’s anchor points. “It’s like the foundation of a temple.”
Rendón didn’t always see a relationship between the art he creates and his place in the world as a child of God. He says his art was always in him, but his art’s purpose was not always there — until he went to college. There he met Georgina Bringas, a young lady who created art with a similar vision to his own. But he saw something different in her and how she created her art with a purpose he hoped to have.
Bringas has been a member of the Church her whole life. In Rendón she found a kindred spirit who was trying to express himself through art. As the two dated, Rendón learned about Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness and chose to be baptized. Later, the two were married and sealed in the temple, and they have raised their family in the gospel, as well.
Bringas has shown her art at the Church History Museum before and has an installation in this show called “La vibración del tiempo” or “The Vibration of Time,” which uses VHS tape and computer fans to illustrate how time occupies space. While she couldn’t come to Salt Lake City to install her work, she trusted her husband would be as meticulous as she would be in installing both of their accepted works.
“We know art is not everything,” Rendón said. “But it is really beautiful that we can connect these dots — the art, the religious, our life. ...
“For me, art is a way of showing knowledge and getting to know the world around you,” Rendón said. “I was asking my wife, ‘Why do they want me here?’ And it is good for me to know, I believe, that I’m in a good place with my Heavenly Father. It means for me that the Lord is interested in me somehow, and I love that.”
Quilted together in love
Fabrics are used as a medium in multiple pieces in the new exhibit. From the Va Va’u Ward’s Relief Society, which created a tapa bark cloth with paintings of Temple Square, to the 14th Ward Relief Society’s album quilt, which is a more traditional style of quilt seen in the United States, to Joni Susanto’s Indonesian interpretation of the First Vision using a batik style that is common to parts of Asia and Africa, a variety of stories are told using fabric in unique ways.
Looking specifically at the tapa cloth and the quilt, Laura Paulsen Howe, Church History Museum art curator, says she sees a lot of underlying similarities.
“You have a group of Latter-day Saints — in these cases both Relief Societies, both women — who are thinking about how they can do good in helping people,” she said.
The quilt was created to raise money for those in need. The tapa was created to help a future missionary remember where he came from and the community supporting him, Howe explained.
“Tongan Latter-day Saints have been a huge force for good,” Howe said. “So I’m excited to let the Tongan voice speak for itself a little bit in this exhibition.”
While paintings done with oil or acrylic or watercolor may be economical to re-create and hang in homes or chapels, cloth and fabric are more challenging to replicate. But Howe said the art on display all deserves to be seen in person.
“Seeing the texture of dots come off the canvas, seeing those stitches on a quilt, there is something about seeing art in person,” she said. “When you sit in fast and testimony meeting, and there is an immediacy to what they are saying and you know a little bit about them and who they are and their faith in Jesus Christ — I feel that in an exhibition. … This feels like an international testimony meeting.”
Come and see
“Putting together an exhibit like this, reading stories of Church history, they serve as landmarks to me of people worldwide doing their best to become like Christ. I see examples throughout the world and throughout time which give me a place, an identity and a confidence that I can continue doing my best to make covenants and grow closer to the Savior,” Howe said.
Urbina talked about what she has learned from the artists in helping organize this exhibit.
“To have spent time with them, learning about their processes, understanding what it is that they are trying to depict, increases my faith and my testimony of the doctrines and beliefs that I hold most dear.”
The exhibit is now open to the public and will be available to visit through February 2025. The museum is open on Mondays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The museum is closed on Sundays. A special grand opening will take place Oct. 17 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Admission to the museum and its exhibits is free. The museum is located at 45 N. West Temple in Salt Lake City, directly west of the Tabernacle on Temple Square.
