A Trevor Southey painting has been donated to the Friends of the Ski Mountain Mining History organization. The Friends will sell the painting to the highest bidder.
Trevor Southey was born in Rhodesia which is now Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, he is considered a contemporary Utah painter. Donovan Symonds, a member of the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining told KPCW he’s always loved Southey’s work. His previous consulting firm commissioned a three-piece trip-tych painting which hung in their conference room for some time. The first part of the painting depicts exploration and geology. The middle part represents historical mining and the third portrays reclamation.
Friend’s member and artist Marianne Cone says the painting is large and potentially would fit well in many of Park City’s sizeable homes.
“I don’t know how he came to Utah. He may have been a convert. He was a Mormon at one time and then he got two degrees in art at BYU and then he taught at the University of Utah. He’s very good with figures. I mean he's an excellent draftsman, beautiful work and so this triptych has some very precise drawings. There are two men in the middle, miners, and at each end a little piece of nature and then the rest is quite abstract with some bars of bright color. It's a beautiful painting and it's over 10 feet long and it's over 4 feet high.”
Symonds says the paintings hung in his old firm’s conference room until the company was recently acquired. The paintings are valued at 30 to $40,000.
“I talked to them and asked would you like to donate them to what we're doing in Park City with the Friends of the Ski Mountain Mining history and we’ll use the money that we raise to help stabilize the mining structures in Park City. So, they graciously agreed to do that.”
Symonds says the artist had a painting hanging at the Salt Lake Airport, which was displayed when the airport had expanded in the 1980’s.
“One of his more famous things was a painting at the new airport of two people flying. This was in the 80’s when they added on to the airport. It was a naked man and woman flying through the air and received… uh...
“It was there for a while.”
“It was there for a while, but people were sticking luggage tags over what someone would call the naughty bits and unfortunately it was removed and it's now in the actual Utah Museum of Natural history I think.”
Whether the painting is auctioned off to the highest bidder or sold outright for a good offer has not been decided. Cone and Simmons are grateful for the donation and their organization wants to optimize the fund raising from the Trevor Southey mining history painting.
“Well it’s winter so we’re not desperate for the funds so I'm just not sure how we're proceeding. You know, Donovan's a mining engineer but he has an aesthetic side which is a wonderful combination.”
“Well, thank you. I just like Trevor's paintings and we're just pleased that we've got it back and someone can benefit. Maybe a new hotel or someone in town would like it in Their lobby and we've already had some feelers out on that regard so.”
The three-piece painting is hanging at the Park City Museum annex in Prospector Square. Contact Park City Museum Director Sandra Morrison at 435-649-7457 ext.103, for more information.
