Angela Swanson Jones

Angela Swanson Jones is a distinguished American art historian and critic, Director of the International ARC Salon Competition at the Art Renewal Center (ARC), and a judge of the Third Venice International Watercolor Festival.

Angela holds a degree from Brigham Young University and an M.A. in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. During her studies she completed internships at Sotheby's New York and Christie's London, and went on to live and work in Europe for a decade, developing a broad and deeply informed international perspective on the art world. She is currently based in Dallas, Texas.

As a scholar, Angela specializes in 19th and 20th-century realist and religious art. She has authored and co-authored three books: Desperately Young: Artists Who Died in Their Twenties (ACC Art Books, 2020), Dictionary of Utah Fine Artists (Gibbs Smith, 2022), and John Hafen: Utah's Poet Painter (Gibbs Smith, 2025). She has also contributed articles to Fine Art Connoisseur and is currently researching and writing a biography and catalogue raisonné of the German painter Heinrich Hofmann (1824–1911).

In her institutional role, Angela serves as Director of the International ARC Salon Competition at the Art Renewal Center — widely regarded as the largest and most prestigious realist art competition in the world. Founded in 1999, the ARC has become one of the central platforms driving the global resurgence of contemporary realism and skill-based artistic training.