Not Sen. Bob Bennett.

Besides the ubiquitous pictures with presidents, Bennett adorns his office with a collection of art he has amassed during his career. Watercolors, oils, tapestries - some modern and abstract, some landscapes.

That suits Bennett, a third-term senator who displays in his office only awards that have an artistic flare, such as the crystal pyramids behind his desk.

"I decided I did not want an I-love-me wall," Bennett says. "I have an I-love-me closet."

Instead, Bennett's main office and his smaller Capitol work area are mini art galleries.

A visitor's first hint that Bennett is a connoisseur hangs in the lobby of his fourth-floor office in the Dirksen Building, just north of the Capitol. A painting of Zion National Park's Great White Throne, on loan from the Salt Lake International Airport, graces a wall behind a receptionist. Another wall displays a watercolor painting of aspen trees at fall, a reproduction of Brigham Young University's family camp, Aspen Grove.

Then there's a remarkable painting of the castle-like City-County Building in downtown Salt Lake City, only with a purple-to-blue roof.

"If this is missing, we immediately track down Deedee Corradini," Bennett jokes of the city's former mayor, who apparently had a fondness for the painting.

Bennett takes on the role of a docent when giving a tour of his art collection, much of which he commissioned through his niece, Ann Bradham of Georgia. The watercolors in his office were painted by Bradham, who Bennett sent to Utah to finish as many pieces as possible until the money ran out.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, also is an avid art collector and displays several paintings by Utahns in his offices in Washington and Utah. Many of the art pieces are by VaLoy Eaton, a Utah artist whose work is widely showcased in the Grand America and Little America hotels in downtown Salt Lake City.

Hatch also has two bronze sculptures by Utahn Ed Fraughton and a giant portrait of himself in his conference room.

Utah's other delegation members display various pieces of art as well, especially photographs or paintings of Utah's red rock country. But Bennett's collection is more eclectic and striking.

Just outside his personal office, just beneath a clock that lights up when the senator has to vote, hangs one of Bradham's best paintings. It's a replication of the Salt Lake LDS Temple, but not just an image of it. The painting is of a reflection in the Crossroads Mall windows, showing a more impressionistic temple, with curvy lines replacing the more rigid ones of the original.

Genetics played some part in Bennett's eye for color. His dad, former Sen. Wallace Bennett, ran the Bennett Glass and Paint Company, where the father revolutionized the idea of tinting a single can of paint with pigment instead of storing hundreds of different shades.

But Bennett really found his love of art while attending the University of Utah, where he was tossed into an art appreciation class as a freshman. "I had never paid much attention to visual art," he says of his younger days.

George Dibble, a Utah artist, teacher and art critic, taught Bennett a new appreciation for paintings. "That's what those classes were about," Bennett says. "Take a freshman and turn them into renaissance men and women."

The spark lit, he started visiting museums. His office now doubles as one.

A prized possession for him is a painting of wheat fields once owned by Bennett's grandfather. He guesses the piece, by Edwin Evans from 1895, would fetch $40,000 to $50,000 on the market, but because of the family tie it's invaluable to him. Nearby is a contemporary oil of the Provo River, and another still-life painting of a table with overturned vessels that he bought on the streets of Moscow for $140.

Above Bennett's office couch hangs a quilt by Jinny Lee Snow dubbed Firestorm, inspired by the 1988 Yellowstone National Park fire.

Former Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence Small once visited Bennett's office and warned him the light was too bright and damaging his paintings. He needed to cover the windows and dim the lights.

Bennett was concerned but kept the lights on. He didn't want to work in the dark.

Many of Bennett's pieces come from what he called the Art Collection Fund.

Sometime in his early career, he gathered a group of investors and they purchased a variety of paintings Ð a stable investment sure to at least hold its value despite swings in the New York Stock Exchange.

It didn't last long, but when the group disbanded, Bennett claimed several of the more modern, abstract pieces. Those hang in what is known as his hideaway, an office in the basement of the Senate side of the Capitol. As the name implies, it's a quiet, hidden room in a bland corridor, but it contains an impressive collection.

"I say jokingly, here in the hideaway is a place I can display the art my wife won't let me hang at home," Bennett says.

Four are pieces from French painter Nat Leeb, who was tutored under the hand of Claude Monet. In one corner, Bennett displays what appears a Leeb representational painting that, using shapes and lines, shows a sword fight between two Swiss guards. Peering closely, you can see the strokes of the swords.

Nearby is another Leeb, an abstract, awash with color and so caked with oil paint it appears three-dimensional. "I've had this painting for 40 years and I still see something new," Bennett says, gazing at it as though he discovered a hue never seen before.

"That's the real test of art," Bennett adds. "It's not your first reaction, but how you feel about it six months later."

Dominating the room is a large blue field tapestry with a circle swimming in a variety of colors. It's a Leeb original, and though it says one of six on the back, Bennett says no others were ever woven.

Above a set of two phones, a giant fax machine and copier and Bennett's hideaway desk, hangs one of the most valuable pieces, another Leeb abstract that Bennett says could be worth up to $100,000.

Asked whether he finds it typical for a U.S. senator to surround himself with such modern, abstract paintings, Bennett doesn't flinch.

"I don't know what's typical," he says. "I know what I like."

tburr@sltrib.com