The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe governed by the state of

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, United States. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the

Museum of New Mexico The Museum of New Mexico is a collection of museums, historic sites, and archaeological services governed by the State of New Mexico. It currently consists of six divisions: the Palace of the Governors state history museum, the New Mexico Museum o ...

. It is located one block off the historic

Santa Fe Plaza The Santa Fe Plaza (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Plaza de Santa Fe'') is a National Historic Landmark in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico in the style of traditional Spanish-American colonial cities. The plaza, or city square is a gathering place ...

. It was given its current name in 2007, having previously been referred to as The Museum of Fine Arts.

History

The building was designed by architect

Isaac Rapp Isaac Hamilton Rapp, (1854 – March 27, 1933) was an American architect who has been called the "Creator of the Santa Fe style." He was born in Orange, New Jersey. Rapp learned his trade working for his father, a sometime architect and building ...

and completed in 1917. It is an example of

Pueblo Revival Style architecture Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlemen ...

, and one of Santa Fe's best-known representations of the synthesis of Native American and

Spanish Colonial The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (), often known simply as Spanish Revival, is a term used to encompass a number of revivalist architectural styles based in both Spanish colonial architecture and Spanish architecture in general. These ...

design styles. The façade was based on the mission churches of

Acoma Acoma may refer to: * ''Acoma'' (beetle), a scarab beetle genus of subfamily Melolonthinae * Acoma Pueblo, a Native American pueblo * Acoma, Nevada, a ghost town * Acoma Township, McLeod County, Minnesota, US * , more than one ship of the US Navy ...

, San Felipe,

Cochiti Cochiti (; Eastern Keresan: Kotyit ʰocʰi̥tʰ Western Keresan K’úutìim’é ʼúːtʰìːm̰é Navajo: ''Tǫ́ʼgaaʼ'' /tʰṍʔkɑ̀ːʔ/) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sandoval County, New Mexico, United States. A historic pu ...

, Laguna, Santa Ana and Pecos.

Collections

The museum’s art collection includes over 20,000 paintings, photographs, sculptures, prints, drawings and mixed-media works. Notable artists in the collection include

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his Monochrome photography, black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association ...

, Gustave Baumann, Brian O'Connor,

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 March 6, 1986) was an American Modernism, modernist painter and drafter, draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the "M ...

Fritz Scholder Fritz William Scholder V (October 6, 1937 – February 10, 2005) was a Native American artist, who produced paintings, monotypes, lithographs, and sculptures. Scholder was an enrolled member of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, a federally r ...

, T. C. Cannon,

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

, Luis Jimenez,

Maria Martinez Maria Poveka Montoya Martinez ( – July 20, 1980) was a Pueblo peoples, Pueblo artist who created internationally known Native American pottery, pottery. Martinez (born Maria Poveka Montoya), her husband Julian Martinez, Julian, and other fam ...

, members of the

Ashcan School The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods. T ...

Los Cinco Pintores Los Cinco Pintores ("The Five Painters") was a group of early 20th-century artists in Santa Fe, New Mexico that included Will Shuster, Fremont Ellis, Walter Mruk, Jozef Bakos, and Willard Nash. By 1921, Shuster, Ellis, Mruk, Bakos, and Nash h ...

, Transcendental Painting Group, and the

Taos Society of Artists The Taos Society of Artists was an organization of visual arts founded in Taos, New Mexico. Established in 1915, it was disbanded in 1927. The Society was essentially a commercial cooperative, as opposed to a stylistic collective, and its foundation ...

Paintings

'Cui Bono' by Gerald Cassidy, c. 1911, New Mexico Museum of Art.JPG , Gerald Cassidy, ''Cui Bono'', 1911 'View of Santa Fe Plaza in the 1850s' by Gerald Cassidy, c. 1930.JPG , Gerald Cassidy, ''View of Santa Fe Plaza in the 1850s'', 1930 'Taos Pueblo--Moonlight' by Eanger Irving Couse.JPG ,

Eanger Irving Couse Eanger Irving Couse (September 3, 1866 – April 26, 1936) was an American artist and a founding member and first president of the Taos Society of Artists. Born and reared in Saginaw, Michigan, he went to New York City and Paris to study art. Wh ...

, ''Taos Pueblo—Moonlight'', 1914 'My Children' by William Herbert Dunton, New Mexico Museum of Art.JPG ,

William Herbert Dunton William Herbert "Buck" Dunton (August 28, 1878 – March 18, 1936) was an American artist and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. He is noted for paintings of cowboys, New Mexico, and the American Southwest. Early life and educati ...

, ''My Children'', 1920 'El Santo' by Marsden Hartley, 1919, New Mexico Museum of Art.JPG ,

Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was bor ...

, ''El Santo'', 1919 'Portrait of Dieguito Roybal, San Ildefonso Pueblo' by Robert Henri, 1916.JPG ,

Robert Henri Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher. As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...

, ''Portrait of Dieguito Roybal, San Ildefonso Pueblo'', 1916 'Pueblo Adobes' by William Penhallow Henderson, 1918, pastel .JPG ,

William Penhallow Henderson William Penhallow Henderson (1877 - 1943) was an American Painting, painter, architect, and furniture designer. Early life and education William Penhallow Henderson was born in 1877 in Medford, Massachusetts. His father, William Oliver Henderson ...

, ''Pueblo Adobes'', 1918 'Noon' by William Penhallow Henderson, New Mexico Museum of Art.JPG , William Penhallow Henderson, ''Noon'', 1920 'Mesa Encantada' by William Henry Holmes, 1914, watercolor.JPG ,

William Henry Holmes William Henry Holmes (December 1, 1846 – April 20, 1933), known as W. H. Holmes, was an American explorer, anthropologist, archaeologist, artist, scientific illustrator, cartographer, mountain climber, geologist and museum curator and dire ...

, ''Mesa Encantada'', 1914 'Santa Fe Mountains in October' by Sheldon Parsons, before 1919.JPG , Sheldon Parsons, ''Santa Fe Mountains in October'', 1919

St. Francis Auditorium

The St. Francis Auditorium, located in the New Mexico Museum of Art, is the venue for various cultural and musical organizations, including the

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival is a six-week-long summer Festival of chamber music held annually in July and August and located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was founded in 1972 and presented its first series of concerts in 1973. Well-known mu ...

and the

Santa Fe Community Orchestra Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Christma ...

. The auditorium has a seating capacity of 450. The auditorium displays several murals depicting St. Francis of Assisi which were originally designed by Donald Beauregard and completed by Carlos Vierra and Kenneth M. Chapman.

Library

The museum library contains art books, periodicals, biographical files of artists whose work is collected by the museum and catalogs of the museum's exhibitions since 1917.

Vladem Contemporary

The Vladem Contemporary Annex of the New Mexico Museum of Art is scheduled to open in September 2023. The annex will house the New Mexico Museum of Art's contemporary collections and shows. The renovation project is an adaptive reuse of the 1936 Charles Ilfeld Warehouse (repurposed and renamed as the State of New Mexico's Joseph F Halpin Records Building). The annex is named for philanthropists Bob and Ellen Vladem.

References

Citations

Works cited

* * * * *

External links

* {{authority control 1917 establishments in New Mexico Art museums and galleries in New Mexico Art museums and galleries established in 1917 Culture of Santa Fe, New Mexico Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Modern art museums Museums in Santa Fe, New Mexico Museums of American art Pueblo Revival architecture in Santa Fe, New Mexico