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Artwork of the Week

Artwork of the Week: August 9, 2021

Mahonri M. Young (1877-1957), Right to the Jaw, 1926, Bronze, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchase/gift of the Mahonri M. Young Estate, 1959.

Utah-born Mahonri Young was regarded as one of America’s most prestigious sculptors in the early 20 th century. Mahonri created his dynamic artworks based on observation of life and labor. In the 1920s, he created a series of bronzes depicting prizefighters, inspired by his own interest in the sport and its rising popularity. The well-defined musculature of the athletes in this sculpture evidences Young's academic training in New York and Paris and his thorough understanding of the human form in motion. On August 9, 1877, Mahonri Young was born in Salt Lake City. The BYU Museum of Art is honored to house a large collection of his work.