About Us

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The Utah Monumental Women's Sculpture Garden is a permanent, public memorial honoring the women who helped shape Utah’s history, culture, and civic life. Through life-size bronze sculptures, relief panels, and interpretive design, the garden tells the stories of women whose courage, leadership, creativity, and service continue to influence Utah today.

It is designed as both a place of reflection and a living classroom — where history, art, and public space meet.

For generations, women’s contributions have been foundational — yet underrepresented in public monuments. This garden corrects that historical imbalance while offering Utah a space that honors leadership, service, and community building across cultures and eras.

It is both a tribute and a statement: Utah’s story is also women’s story — and that story belongs in public space.

The monument is designed in three interpretive layers:

• Fourteen individual bronze statues honoring selected Utah women
• One allegorical bronze figure symbolizing the collective impact of women statewide
• Multi-figure bronze relief panels portraying historical scenes that may include an additional 20–30 women. Together, they create both personal and collective storytelling.

“Founding Mothers” refers to the women selected for the fourteen individual bronze statues. These are women whose lives and work had substantial, lasting public impact in Utah — across education, civil rights, health, arts, community building, faith, and public service.

They represent a carefully curated sampling of exemplary lives intended to inspire deeper exploration of Utah history.

Selections follow a formal, documented curatorial process guided by:

• A published criteria framework
• Primary and secondary historical documentation
• Review by professional historians and public-history experts
• Tribal and community consultation where appropriate
• Multi-stage approval through a convened Heritage Arts Foundation panel
• Final review by Capitol preservation authorities

Every honoree must be historically defensible, educationally meaningful, and publicly accountable.

Utah has so many women worthy of recognition — far more than any single monument could represent. 

This garden is intentionally designed as a beginning, not a limit — a curated gateway that encourages learning, discovery, and future projects across the state.

A growing team of Utah-based sculptors is creating the monument. All artists are selected for mastery in traditional figurative sculpture and are guided by a lead art director to ensure high quality and visual cohesion across the site. 

All sculptures are created under unified artistic standards — scale, materials, process, and art-direction oversight. While individual artistic voices remain visible, they are intentionally harmonized through shared materials, scale, and landscape design. 

The result is a garden that feels unified — yet human, layered, and alive.

Yes. The garden is designed with ADA accessibility as a central principle, including ramps, safe circulation paths, gathering spaces, and accessible interpretive experiences so visitors of all abilities can engage fully. 

The preferred design footprint is approximately 10,000–15,000 square feet — allowing proper spacing, dignity, accessibility, and interpretive flow. This scale ensures the monument feels appropriate to its Capitol setting and can comfortably serve school groups, tours, and public gatherings. 

Yes. The design replaces irrigated turf with drought-adapted plantings and water-wise landscaping — significantly reducing water use. Any optional water feature would operate as a closed-loop system with minimal evaporation and seasonal operation. 

Overall, the project reduces irrigation demand compared to the existing lawn.

Changes in elevation across the site allow for improved accessibility, visibility, and visitor flow. All elevated elements are fully engineered to meet public safety, accessibility, and fall-protection standards. 

This is one of the few statewide monuments in the nation dedicated entirely to women’s public legacy — and one of the only ones developed with both scholarly rigor and artistic depth as equal priorities. 

It is not symbolic — it is documentary, educational, and permanent.

The project is stewarded by the Heritage Arts Foundation in collaboration with Capitol preservation authorities, professional historians, artists, landscape architects, and community partners. 

All final selections and designs are reviewed through formal approval processes. 

It will stand as a visible reminder that leadership, courage, service, and creativity are not footnotes — they are foundations. 

The garden ensures that Utah’s daughters, sons, students, and visitors see women’s history written into the physical landscape of civic memory.