Jim Jones the 'premiere landscapist of southern Utah'

Jim Jones had his own way of seeing red-rock canyons.

"I think of myself as a fantasy painter of Zion and Grand Canyon," he said, "because I paint them the way they can be or are sometimes. ... I think of myself as a spiritual painter who is trying to raise people's awareness to see this landscape in a way they haven't seen it."

Living and working out of the studio/house he built from an old sheep camp near the entrance to Zion, Jones earned a reputation as "the premiere landscapist of southern Utah," according to Vern Swanson and Robert Olpin in their survey of "Utah Art," published in the 1990s.

By mid-2008, Jones was nearing the end of his career. "We thought it would be nice to do a retrospective exhibition of his art," says Reece Summers, director and curator of the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery at Southern Utah University. "He was really getting quite frail, but I talked to him about it. He would only have to come up with a list of works that would represent his long career. Then I would track down the owners to see if we could borrow the pieces."

Jones came up with a partial list. "Then he called to say he thought he should do one new painting," says Summers. "Four weeks later, he called to say he would do two new paintings. Then, he called to say he wanted to do all new paintings. He did 14 of them, and gifted them to the university."

By the time the show opened in October of 2009, Jones' health was such that he couldn't attend the opening. "He passed away in December, as it turned out, on the day the exhibition closed. How he drew down and found the energy he needed to finish his life's paintings, I'll never know."

Those paintings, and a few of his other works, are now on display in the new O.C. Tanner building in Salt Lake City. The exhibit, sponsored by Zions Bank, O.C. Tanner and Southern Utah University is free and open to the public during regular store hours.

It is very exciting for O.C. Tanner to host the exhibition, says David Peterson, CEO of the company. The newly remodeled building (recently named the "coolest" jewelry store in America) is a perfect setting.

"It's open and has a complimentary color palate. And the jewelry offsets the dazzling art."

This is the first art exhibition to be held there, "but we hope there will be lots of community events" in what was once the Salt Lake Library. It's what the building was built for, what it calls for even now, he says.