Pilar Pobil Humanities Scholarship
Utah painter, sculptor and writer Pilar Pobil has for decades advocated for human rights and minority populations. Her visual works particularly celebrate women’s scholarly and political achievements in addition to their centrality in building community. Over her lifetime Pilar has mentored students from Latinx, Native and other vulnerable populations.
2020-2021 scholarship recipient Rita Anderson, in traditional Peruvian dress, visits with Pilar in the Garden
PILAR POBIL AND WRITING STUDIES SCHOLARS
To honor Pilar’s generosity and to recognize her commitment to humane works and literacy, the Pilar Pobil Legacy Foundation (PPLF) has funded an endowed annual scholarship, the Pilar Pobil Humanities Scholarship (PPHS), to be awarded to a student transferring from Salt Lake Community College to the Writing and Rhetoric Studies Department in the College of Humanities at the University of Utah. These are the Writing Studies Scholars. The PPHS scholarship helps to alleviate tuition costs during the transfer year.
The Writing Studies Scholars selected to receive the PPHS are often, like Pilar, women who are immigrants. They are first-generation college students who frequently work to support their families and do not qualify for typical scholarships.
Rita preparing to tell her story for the “women with heART” exhibit in front of Pilar’s masterwork painting, “The Secret of Inspiration, in the CTIHB.
Although it may seem strange to offer a writing scholarship to honor a renowned painter, Pilar has enjoyed a long relationship with humanities at the university. Her literary achievement, My Kitchen Table: Sketches from My Life, was published by the University of Utah Press and chosen as a finalist in non-fiction for the 2007 Utah Center for the Book Award.
Pilar projects a strong presence on campus through many vibrant paintings. A highlight is her masterwork painting in the Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building lobby. It gathers diverse philosophers, muses, scribes, readers, listeners and orators from many eras in a Southern Utah landscape, inviting living scholars to engage in creative work. Pilar's colorful paintings of women and men fishing the ocean or resting in quiet contemplation on the Costa Cantabrica in her beloved Spain enliven the halls outside the Dean's Office in the LNCO humanities building.
The scholarship reinforces Pilar’s commitment to supporting the community’s most vulnerable populations and to encouraging people to tell their personal stories through many narrative forms.
The PPLF welcomes all contributions to the Pilar Pobil Humanities Scholarship.
Rita, wearing another traditional Incan dress, visits Pilar’s Burial Chamber in Pilar’s iconic home.