Professor to speak on landscape artist Jimmie Jones

Professor James Eton in front of a painting by landscape artist Jimmie Jones. Date unspecified. | Photo courtesy Southern Utah University, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — James Aton, a professor of English at Southern Utah University, will share his extensive knowledge of renowned landscape artist Jimmie Jones as the first speaker of the new year in the St. George Art Museum 3rd Thursday Art Conversation series Thursday at 7 p.m.

Aton, who has taught classes in writing, mythology, American studies and continental European literature at SUU since 1980, has

Waterfall painting by Jimmie Jones. Date unspecified. | Photo courtesy Southern Utah University, St. George News
Waterfall painting by Jimmie Jones. Date unspecified. | Photo courtesy Southern Utah University, St. George News

produced two films, “Jimmie Jones: Redrock Painter” (with Jon M. Smith) and “Voices of Desolation Canyon” (with Jennifer Little), and published two books on his subject. “Jim Jones: The San Blas Years,” was published by SUU Press in 2013.

His biography of the artist, entitled “The Art and Life of Jimmie Jones: Landscape Artist of the Canyon Country” (Gibbs Smith Books), appeared in the fall of 2015. According to Aton, Jones’ prolific body of work — including more than 400 paintings of Zion National Park and another 100 of Grand Canyon — earned the Utah native from Cedar City (and who later lived in Rockville for nearly 30 years) a well-deserved reputation as “one of the most remarkable painters of Zion Canyon, the Grand Canyon and the Colorado Plateau.”

Today, Jones’ work can be seen in banks, museums, churches, hospitals and government buildings throughout the U.S. and is still sought by collectors.

Art Conversations at the St. George Art Museum are regularly scheduled adult gatherings of art lovers interested in more information about artists on display, collectors or topics relating to shows at the museum.

Art Conversations are free of charge. The St. George Art Museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 47 E. 200 North, St. George.

According to the museum’s mission statement, the city-owned and operated facility exists “to educate … through quality exhibitions from all periods, cultures and media … and to collect, conserve, inventory, exhibit and interpret art and artifacts from Utah and the West.”

For more information about this 3rd Thursday Art Conversation — the first of 2016 — or the current exhibit “Uniting America: 100 Years on Common Ground,” call 435-627-4525. The “Uniting America” exhibit runs through May 28, showing the artistic interpretation of Zion Canyon and other spectacular scenery in the Grand Circle of national parks celebrating the centennial anniversary of the National Park Service, .

Event details

  • What: 3rd Thursday Art Conversation, James Aton
  • When: Thursday, Jan. 21, 7 p.m.
  • Where: St. George Art Museum, 47 E. 200 North, St. George

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