Gene Foster and the Glen Canyon Project

Historian Suan Olberding and MNA's Archaeology Division Director Kim Spur will introduce Gene Field Foster, an artist whose unique relationship with MNA led her to record archaeological sites in Glen Canyon during river trips in 1952. These trips led to surveys in lower Glen Canyon, which resulted in stunning photograph documentation from her artist's perspective. Although Foster was hired to make additional surveys in 1957 with a team that included MNA librarian Katharine Bartlett and Research Associate David Brugge, Foster was not included in MNA's fieldwork once the National Park Service Gen Canyon Project launched, and her work was largely forgotten. More than sixty years later, her work is being valued for more than its artist beauty. Her photographs helped inform the work of archaeologists in their quest to re-document sites in Glen Canyon that -- due to historically low water levels -- are again above the waterline. As an artist, Foster looked at the prehistoric images on Glen Canyon's rock walls as art and interpreted them from that perspective. Her photographs tell a story about the petroglyphs from this unique viewpoint.