WORK & WONDER

200 YEARS OF LATTER-DAY SAINT ART

Church History Museum
Salt Lake City Utah
September 26, 2024 - March 1, 2025

120+ works representing three centuries of Latter-day Saint art and objects

For nearly 200 years the rich doctrine, history, and culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have inspired artists to create artworks of diverse and profound expression. As the Church nears the bicentennial of its organization in 1830, this exhibition presents a broad survey of the visual art created by individuals connected to the faith. This exhibition is the largest and most comprehensive attempt to show the variety of works by Latter-day Saint artists around the world from the Church’s founding to the present. It includes imagery from a broad array of backgrounds, materials, and styles and invites audiences to consider both the historical traditions and future trajectories of Latter-day Saint art. Rather than telling a story chronologically or geographically, the exhibition is organized into four thematic sections: Memory and Archive; Individual and Church; Sacred Spaces; and Identity.

Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art is curated by Heather Belnap, Ashlee Whitaker Evans, and Brontë Hebdon, organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, and made possible by the generous support of Center donors.

This exhibition is made possible with support from:

Explore the exhibition

Dive into some of the notable artworks and objects on display now with the passionate curators of Work & Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art.

A kiosk welcomes museum visitors and provides an animated overview of the exhibition.

Hear a behind-the-scenes discussion with exhibition curators about their favorite works and what it was like to research and create Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art.

An exceptional object, a quilt from 1857, is showcased with digital help from a kiosk loaded with stories of the women who made the quilt.

The exhibition features an educational activity cart for children, teens, and adults to explore how artists put ideas together.

Audio Block

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“‘Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art’ showcases works created by individuals connected to the Church around the world over two centuries.” Listen now from the Church News.

Exhibition checklist

Fourteenth Ward Relief Society (Various),
Fourteenth Ward Album Quilt, Salt Lake City, Utah (1857), Textile, Church History Museum and private collection — Fourteenth Ward Relief Society (Various), Fourteenth Ward Album Quilt, Salt Lake City, Utah (1857), Textile, Church History Museum and private collection

Avard Fairbanks (American 1897-1987), Eternal Progress (1933), plaster frieze, Church History Museum

Carl Christian Anton Christensen (American, born Denmark, 1831–1912), Crossing the Mississippi on the Ice (circa 1878), Tempera on muslin, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen

Ricardo Rendón (Mexican, born 1970),
Zona de concentración (2018, installed by the artist, 2024), Steelwire and bronze polished lacquered plumb, dimensions variable,
Collection of the artist — Ricardo Rendón (Mexican, born 1970), Zona de concentración (2018, installed by the artist, 2024), Steelwire and bronze polished lacquered plumb, dimensions variable, Collection of the artist

Richard Lasisi Olagunju (Nigerian, born 1969), Male and Female Created He Them (2019), Coral beads on board, 36 x 25.5 inches, Church History Museum

Sutcliffe Maudsley (British, 1809–1881), Lucy Mack Smith (c. 1842), Gouache on paper, Church History Museum

Acknowledgments

This exhibition was developed with a trio of curators over a period of five years by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts and co-produced by the Church History Museum.

Heather Belnap is Professor of Art History & Curatorial Studies and the newly-appointed Global Women's Studies Coordinator at Brigham Young University. She has presented and published widely in feminist art history, and particularly on women in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art and society. Recently, she has turned her attention to the fields of Utah and Mormon studies. Professor Belnap is the author, with Corry Cropper and Daryl Lee, of Marianne Meets the Mormons: Representations of Mormonism in Nineteenth-century France (University of Illinois Press, 2022), winner of the John Whitmer Historical Association's 2023 Best Book Award. She has co-edited two books, Interior Portraiture and Masculine Identity in France, 1789-1914 (Ashgate, 2011) and Women, Femininity, and Public Space in European Visual Culture, 1789-1914 (Routledge, 2014) and published numerous articles and essays in feminist art history and cultural studies.
Ashlee Whitaker Evans is the former Head Curator and the Roy & Carol Christensen Curator of Religious Art at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art. Her research interests span religious art and visual culture, as well as western regional American art. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including: Rend the Heavens: Intersections of the Human and Divine, In the Arena: The Art of Mahonri Young, The Interpretation Thereof: Contemporary LDS Art and Scripture, Capturing the Canyons: Artists in the National Parks, Loving Devotion: Visions of Vishnu, and Moving Pictures: C.C.A Christensen’s Mormon Panorama.
Brontë Hebdon is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and an adjunct instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, The State University of New York. Her research has been supported by the Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship in Textile and Fashion History at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, as well as New York University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship. She is the curator of two exhibitions for the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts that focus on the art, visual culture, and belief systems of the Latter-day Saint tradition.

We gratefully acknowledge the following:

Center for Latter-day Saint Arts:

Richard L. Bushman, chairman of the board

Stanley Hainsworth, chairman elect

Mykal Urbina, executive director

Heather Belnap, curator

Ashlee Whitaker, curator

Brontë Hebdon, curator

Glen Nelson, special projects director

Erin Eastmond, project intern

Hannah Keime, communication intern

Emily Spung, administrative assistant

Ron Schneider, finances

Cameron King, graphic design

Brett Peterson, interactives

Doug Ellis, exhibition case design and fabrication

Fusion Imaging, production of banners and printed materials

Plastic Fabricating, LLC, fabrication of acrylic displays

360 Scenery, fabrication of cases, vitrines, and pedestals

Thatcher + Co., public relations and marketing

Donors to the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts

More to Explore

Church History Museum:

Riley M. Lorimer, executive director of the Church History Museum

Laura Paulsen Howe, global acquisitions curator and project manager

Berk Ward, production manager

Maggie Leak, registrar

Jennifer Hadley, conservation

Joseph Martinez, audio/visual installation

Debra Xavier Abercrombie, senior specialist of communications

Mark Bradley Ware, education

Marissa Tullis, education

Acknowledgments

This exhibition was developed with a trio of curators over a period of five years by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts and co-produced by the Church History Museum.

Heather Belnap is Professor of Art History & Curatorial Studies and the newly-appointed Global Women's Studies Coordinator at Brigham Young University. She has presented and published widely in feminist art history, and particularly on women in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art and society. Recently, she has turned her attention to the fields of Utah and Mormon studies. Professor Belnap is the author, with Corry Cropper and Daryl Lee, of Marianne Meets the Mormons: Representations of Mormonism in Nineteenth-century France (University of Illinois Press, 2022), winner of the John Whitmer Historical Association's 2023 Best Book Award. She has co-edited two books, Interior Portraiture and Masculine Identity in France, 1789-1914 (Ashgate, 2011) and Women, Femininity, and Public Space in European Visual Culture, 1789-1914 (Routledge, 2014) and published numerous articles and essays in feminist art history and cultural studies.
Ashlee Whitaker Evans is the former Head Curator and the Roy & Carol Christensen Curator of Religious Art at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art. Her research interests span religious art and visual culture, as well as western regional American art. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including: Rend the Heavens: Intersections of the Human and Divine, In the Arena: The Art of Mahonri Young, The Interpretation Thereof: Contemporary LDS Art and Scripture, Capturing the Canyons: Artists in the National Parks, Loving Devotion: Visions of Vishnu, and Moving Pictures: C.C.A Christensen’s Mormon Panorama.
Brontë Hebdon is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and an adjunct instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, The State University of New York. Her research has been supported by the Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship in Textile and Fashion History at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, as well as New York University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship. She is the curator of two exhibitions for the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts that focus on the art, visual culture, and belief systems of the Latter-day Saint tradition.