What makes a painting a masterpiece? Three works at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, on loan from the Smithsonian, open the question.

Alma Thomas’ “Red Sunset, Old Pond Concerto” (1972), on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will be on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts now until Oct. 4, 2020. (Image courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.)

Thomas Moran’s “Mist in Kanab Canyon, Utah” (1892), on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will be on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts now until Oct. 4, 2020. (Image courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.)

It’s fun to listen to two museum directors nerd out over paintings.

That’s what happened when I interviewed Stephanie Stebich, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Gretchen Dietrich, executive director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, on Friday. The occasion is the arrival of three works on loan to UMFA from the Smithsonian, from now through Oct. 4, 2020.

The loan is part of a program involving five Western art museums and SAAM, backed by a $2 million grant by Art Bridges and the Terra Foundation for American Art. (UMFA also has a fourth painting, by Diego Rivera, on a separate loan from Art Bridges, a foundation created by Alice Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune.)

The paintings, all landscapes in their way, spark a conversation about what makes a painting a masterpiece. Read about that conversation, with Stebich and Dietrich, in my article from sltrib.com.