SUU plans art museum to honor local artists

(Deseret News) Long before he died last Saturday, famed Utah landscape artist Jim Jones pledged his home and his final project, which contained 18 of his best landscapes, to Southern Utah University. Now that gift will help the Cedar City university fulfil a commitment to build an art museum, the only one south of Springville.

The proposed Southern Utah Museum of Art still needs donors to come through to begin work on the building, but local community members and others have come up with $3 million of the nearly $12 million necessary for the project. The "easily accessible" plot of land, on the corner of 300 West and University Boulevard, where the 28,000 square-foot museum will stand, will be ready by the end of next summer, according to SUU President Michael Benson.

"We want this to be the first place people visit when they come to campus," he said. "This is something we're committed to making sure happens. And while we're incredibly sad to say goodbye to Jim, and we all feel a big void that he's left, I've said before his work will live forever."

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