Pat Bagley's "Living history" column "What's Utah's priciest painting?" (Tribune, May 20) posed some questionable judgments. Take with a grain of salt his reliance on the opinion of the director of the Springville Museum of Art, but calling the regional museum in Springville "the state's most wide-ranging and inclusive art forum" was a real mistake.

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts on the University of Utah campus was not only designated by the Legislature as the state's fine art museum, it clearly has the most "wide-ranging" collection of art in Utah.

UMFA, where I volunteer on its exhibition and program committee, is Utah's only visual arts institution that collects, exhibits, and preserves a comprehensive collection of original art objects encompassing 5,000 years of history, including, soon, an exhibition of artistically and historically significant racing automobiles.

To substantiate the quality of its practices, UMFA is accredited by the American Association of Museums; the Springville Museum of Art is not.

History — living or not — should be accurate as well as thought-provoking.

Anne Palmer Peterson

Salt Lake City