Contemporary Art Collection by Terry, David Peak Featured at Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art

Perhaps the most important collectors of contemporary art in Logan, Utah, are Terry and David Peak. The Peaks have been avid collectors since 1996 and plan to give a sizable portion of their art collection to the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA).

An exhibition honoring Terry and David Peak as collectors and supporters of NEHMA will open with a reception at the museum from 7-9 p.m. Jan. 27. This exhibition, Perception and Abstraction, The Terry & David Peak Collection, will consist of landscape painting, geometric sculpture, and work incorporating mathematical and scientific systems.

In addition, the Peaks have made a generous gift in support of the museum’s exhibition space. In recognition, the museum has named one of its galleries The Terry and David Peak Gallery.

Terry Peak is a professor of social work, and David Peak is a professor of physics at Utah State University. The Peaks’ gift to NEHMA helps strengthen the museum’s collection of work by contemporary artists from the western United States, and in particular New Mexico. The focus of the Peaks’ collection is contemporary landscape paintings of the Southwest, including those by David Barbero, Jason Berger, Michael Glier, Joel Greene, Dan Namingha and Julian Sibony, all of whom are represented in the exhibition.

Abstraction also has a strong presence in the Peak collection. Works by Jim Alford and Gabriele Evertz directly address issues of perception through the use of optical illusion and the transformative effect of color. Abstraction also applies to the computer-generated art of AARON by Harold Cohen, the first artist to explore artificial intelligence in art over forty years ago that is also a part of the Peak’s collection.

Bolton Colburn, the curator of collections and exhibitions, says: “USU Professors Terry and David Peak have been quietly building one of the more substantial collections of work by artists from Santa Fe for a few decades. The exhibition Abstraction and Perception consists of the highlights of their efforts and covers everything from modern landscape painting to work that probes our sense of color and space.”

Perception and Abstraction, The Terry & David Peak Collection will be open to the public from Jan. 27 - July 20, 2024. The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art welcomes all to the opening reception from 7-9 p.m. Jan. 27.

NEHMA fosters engagement with modern and contemporary art to facilitate learning and promote dialogue about ideas important to the people of Utah and the mission of Utah State University. The Terry & David Peak Collection aids this mission by highlighting artists of the American Southwest.

Admission is free and open to all. Parking is available in the free museum parking stalls and at the Gateway Terrace. For more information, visit usu.edu/artmuseum or contact Shaylee Briones: shaylee.briones@usu.edu, (435)797-0227.