Robert Henri painted empowering portraits of individuals from communities that were often denigrated by mainstream culture. Dieguito Roybal presents a well-known drummer from San Ildefonso Pueblo as a powerful, influential man. Henri donated the painting to the Museum of Art for its opening exhibition in November 1917.

A deep sense of personal freedom motivated this New York-based educator, painter, and radical activist. Henri spent three summers painting in New Mexico at the invitation of local culture-broker Edgar Lee Hewett. Henri’s democratic spirit resulted in the development of the “Open Door” policy that rejected the idea of juried exhibitions. This policy lasted until after World War II when there were simply too many artists and all the work could not fit into the museum’s galleries.

Robert Henri (1865 – 1929)Portrait of Dieguito Roybal, San Ildefonso Pueblo

1916 Oil on canvas 67 × 40 inches

Maria and Julian Martinez invented Matte-on-black pottery at a time when anthropologists rejected

innovation by Native artists. The social scientists placed a premium on the art of the past that they considered

to be “authentic” and culturally “pure.”

At the first Indian Fair in 1922, Maria won the top prize — $5.00 — for a large Matte-on-black jar. This occurred in spite of anthropological efforts to promote traditional arts and designs. The Matte-on-black style soon became considered

“traditional,” not a recent invention.

The modernist artist community in Santa Fe valued innovation and actively supported Maria and Julian’s

newly invented Matte-on-black pottery. In 1920 the Museum of Art exhibited three examples of Maria and Julian’s Matte-on-black pottery, including this piece, along with 14 of their traditional polychrome vessels.

Maria Martinez (1887 – 1980)Julian Martinez (1885 – 1943) Matte-on-black Jar

1919 – 1920 Clay and pigment 9.3125 × 12.375 × 12.375 inches

José Dolores López discovered that whittling alleviated his insomnia after the U. S. Army drafted his son, Nicudemos, during World War I. He gave his chip-carved picture frames and functional objects to friends and relatives. Soon they became popular items in the village of Cordova. By the mid-1920s, he had begun selling secular and religious sculptures such as Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Painter Frank Applegate and activist-writer Mary Austin founded the Spanish Colonial Art Society to encourage the production of Hispanic art. During the 1926 Fiesta de Santa Fe, the society organized a fair that evolved after World War II into today’s Spanish Market, held each July in Santa Fe.

José Dolores López (1868 – 1937)Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

1920s Aspen 12.75 × 14 × 8 inches

This sculpture wasn’t made to be a work of art! It’s one of Robert Goddard’s experimental liquid-fueled rocket engines. But in the context of an art museum, it becomes viewed as a sculpture that reflects the aspirations of an industrial society seeking to overcome the Great Depression through science and technology.

Goddard experimented with liquid-fueled rockets in Roswell, New Mexico, and became known as the father of modern rocketry. His 1931 – 1932 Combustion Chamber, Nozzle and Jacket represented cutting edge technology at the time — but today it seems remarkably primitive in comparison with contemporary rocket designs.

Robert Goddard (1882 – 1945)Combustion Chamber, Nozzle, and Jacket

1931 – 1932 Aluminum and copper 63.5 × 16 × 16 inches

New Mexicans forever changed the world at the crack of dawn on July 16, 1945. On that still morning, the Manhattan Project from Los Alamos detonated the first nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo. This frighteningly foreboding, deceptively simple, and hauntingly beautiful image documents the most important single event in the 14,000 years of human activity in New Mexico.

This photograph records the birth of the Atomic Age as a seething plasma of pure energy with the power to kill as well as save lives through nuclear medicine.

Welcome to the contradictions of the twenty-first century.

Berlyn B. Brixner (1911 – 2009), Official Photographer, Los Alamos Project, Optics Group (G11)First Atomic Explosion at a Distance of About Five Miles, Trinity Site, New Mexico, July 16, 1945

1945 Gelatin silver print 8 × 10 inches

The Rabbit Hunter seems superficial in the context of World War II. Oscar Berninghaus’s circa-1945 painting depicts men from Taos Pueblo hunting rabbits on horseback with bows and arrows. At this time, the men from Taos Pueblo hunted with shotguns, drove pickup trucks, and were unaware of the secret development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos.

But Berninghaus continued to paint New Mexico scenes as if nothing had changed during the twentieth century. He continued painting commercially successful, nostalgic views of the region. These ethnic scenes quickly lost their appeal after World War II. The world changed; New Mexico changed; the artists changed; and so did the audience.

Oscar Berninghaus (1874 – 1952)The Rabbit Hunter

Circa 1945 Oil on canvas 34.5 × 39.5 inches

Peter Hurd depicted ranching lifeways in his paintings from New Mexico. His Portrait of Gerald Marr shows a young man exuding a deep pride in his regional roots while contemplating his future.

Will he continue to rodeo, or be drafted and sent to fight in the Korean War? Will he go to work in the oil fields, or saddle up and become a rancher? Well, Maar did what he knew best — he stayed put, became a horse trainer and rancher here in New Mexico.

Peter Hurd (1904 – 1984)Portrait of Gerald Maar

1952 Egg tempera on gesso 32.5 × 39.5 inches

Death is never far behind as Luis Tapia reminds us in his sculpture Chima Altar, Bertram’s Cruise. Tapia’s recreation of the dashboard and bucket seats of a mythic automobile is purely New Mexican. A quick look in the rear view mirror reveals an image of death following closely. But a closer look show the car is now in reverse with the speedometer stuck at 80 going backward. And in a poignant turn of events, life is about to overtake death.

Tapia began as a traditional santero, a saint-maker creating painted religious carvings and displaying his works at Spanish Market in Santa Fe. Tapia branched out by addressing popular culture themes of Hispanic life from Northern New Mexico. However, traditionalist no longer considered his work traditional when he incorporated modern pigments and subjects in his sculptures.

Luis Tapia (b. 1950)Chima Altar, Bertram’s Cruise

1992 Carved and painted wood 34.5 × 58 × 18.75 inches

Diego Romero updates prehistoric Mimbres pottery and is known for including realistic images and narrative scenes. Siege of Santa Fe presents an interpretation of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Romero spent his youth reading comic books and incorporates this pop culture drawing style in his scenes.

Neither the Pueblos nor the Hispanos are winning in this work, implying a cultural standoff at a defining moment in New Mexico history. Siege is not a one-sided take on the revolt; rather it is graphically powerful and politically provocative. Consequently it raises questions that encourage contemplation and discussion.

Diego Romero connects past, present, and future through ceramic vessels that also incorporate borders based on Ancestral Pueblo designs. The black-and-white borders are equally balanced, making the design appear as a white design on a black background.

Diego Romero (b. 1964)Siege of Santa Fe

2009 Terracotta 34.5 × 16 × 16 inches

What makes the art of New Mexico so special and distinctive?New Mexico is the only place in the world where the history of technological invention ranges from stone tools to the atomic bomb. The art of New Mexico reflects this changing world. New Mexico art has a single history that represents a fusion of the ethnic groups, religious outlooks, and artistic traditions of the people who live in Southwest. The borrowing of artistic ideas across cultural divides, the creation of spiritual imagery, and the use of humor in art are healing mechanism that have helped New Mexicans overcome injustice, anger, and cultural difference.

If you’d like to explore the themes in Art Across New Mexico in more depth, plan a visit to see It’s About Time: 14,000 Years of Art in New Mexico at the New Mexico Museum of Art on the Plaza in Santa Fe.

The New Mexico Museum of Art is open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Tuesday through Sunday, and also on Mondays from Memorial Day through Labor Day. We encourage visitors from across the state by offering free admission to New Mexico residents every Sunday. For more information or to arrange a tour, call Ellen Zieselman at (505) 476-5075.

To reach as many people across the state as possible, the Museum offers access to its collections in a number of ways:

• Art Across New Mexico will be touring the state throughout 2013. Check out our website for dates and venues at www.nmartmuseum.org.

• Have a look at our collections in New Mexico Museum of Art on our Searchable Art Museum (SAM) on www.nmartmuseum.org.

• Discover more about the rich history of the State through its vibrant artistic traditions at New Mexico Art tells New Mexico History on www.nmartmuseum.org.

Rick Dillingham’s ceramics weren’t finished until

they were broken and the reworked shards were

glued back together. Untitled (Globe) exemplifies

the process, incorporating gold leaf as well as colored

glazes that contrast with the vessel’s elegant globular

form and randomly broken parts.

Dillingham made non-functional sculptures about

functional ceramic objects. His process of breaking

and reassembling alludes to the fragmentation of

American society during the 1970s.

Dillingham integrated art, scholarship, popular culture,

and Native American sources into a sculptural whole.

As a scholar he wrote comprehensive works about

Pueblo ceramics and the families who created stylistic

linages at the end of the twentieth century.

Rick Dillingham (1952 – 1994)Untitled (Globe)

1985 – 1986 Ceramic, gold leaf, enamel, glue 12 × 15 × 15 inches

Art Across New Mexico

Art Across New Mexico celebrates the New Mexico Centennial of Statehood and our vibrant artistic heritage. This exhibition explores the state’s long history of cultural interactions. These connections and influences have shaped the visual arts that define New Mexico.

The New Mexico Museum of Art is touring this exhibition as part of our statewide outreach program. You can view works from the museum’s collection any time online at www.nmartmuseum.org by browsing through our Searchable Art Museum or exploring the history of the state through New Mexico Art tells New Mexico History.

This exhibition has been generously supported by: The New Mexico Humanities Council Newman’s Own Foundation Museum of New Mexico Foundation

Modernist painter Raymond Jonson honored New Mexico by donating

his paintings N and M to the Museum of Art. The two works are part of

a series of twenty-six abstractions based on each letter from the alphabet.

The paintings allude to Jonson’s interest in music, color, and inventive design.

Raymond Jonson (1891 – 1982)Variations on Rhythm N

1932 Oil on canvas 37 × 32 inches

Raymond Jonson (1891 – 1982)Variations on Rhythm M

1932 Oil on canvas 37 × 32 inches

Maker Unknown Clovis Point

Circa 13,650 – 12,800 bp Edwards Plateau chert 1.5 × 4.375 inches

Maker Unknown Folsom Point

Circa 12,900 – 11,950 bp Edwards Plateau chert 0.75 × 1.3125 inches

The first New Mexicans came to the Southwest and hunted mammoths, bison, and sloths, and gathered plant materials. The cool, moist climate 14,000 years ago attracted these animals to the springs, streams, and ponds of locales like the Blackwater Draw between Portales and Clovis, New Mexico.

The stone tools made by Paleo-Indians, known as Clovis points, are works of art as well as functional tools. Clovis hunters employed complex flaking techniques to make diagnostic thinning flakes called flutes, and they used only the best flints. The skill and care that they incorporated into the making of their tools suggests they are also works of art. Paleo-Indian tools can be considered conceptual works of art because they exemplify their detailed knowledge the environment, climate, food sources, water, and useful minerals.

Paleo-Indian bands adapted their hunting practices to herds of now-extinct bison after mammoths became extinct. Folsom Culture hunters used smaller fluted points that were first identified with bison kills near Folsom, New Mexico.

It might seem that the smaller spear points would be easier to fashion than the larger Clovis points. Not so. The thinner points shatter more easily at the last stage of production when the knapper strikes the flute from each side of the point.

Paleo-Indian tools became “modern” in the 1920s and 1930s when archaeologists found them with the bones of long-extinct animals. Today we consider these spear points to be works of art that fuse simplified form, supreme craft, and sophisticated function.

The painted shapes are obvious on this Black-on-white bowl from Chaco Canyon. But look closer and you will notice that the

un-painted areas have the same shape as the painted hatched forms. Not all potters were able to create this kind of

design. Their production must have had a long learning curve. Variations of these designs were widespread

throughout the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon cultures of the Southwest between 900 and 1450.

As Ancestral Pueblo people became less nomadic with the beginnings of agriculture after 800, their

sedentary lifestyles encouraged the development of pottery making and the construction of

permanent stone and adobe multi-story pueblos.

Maker UnknownGallup Black-on-white Bowl, Chetro Ketl, Chaco Canyon

Circa 1000 – 1125 ce Clay and pigment 2.75 × 6 × 6 inches

Ancestral Pueblo designs often create optical illusions if you stare at them and let your eyes begin to un-focus. The design will begin to reverse and the painted, positive forms will appear as the background and the unpainted area this bowl will appear as a red, meandering line painted on a dark background.

Maker UnknownPuerco Black-on-red Bowl

Circa 1050 – 1175 ce Ceramic, slip and pigment 4.25 × 9.25 × 9.25 inches

The first governor of New Mexico left the following message at Inscription Rock, now known as El Morro National Monument: Passed by here the officer Don Juan de

Oñate to the discovery of the sea of the South on the 16th of April, year 1605.

Oñate wrote his message over a Pueblo petroglyph of a spiritual katsina figure — an act that can be interpreted as an expression of Spanish domination over the Pueblos.

When the Spanish colonists had entered New Mexico in 1598, they brought an economy based on tribute, indentured servitude, and private property. They also imposed Christianity and subordinated Native religions.

Social tensions developed between the colonists and the Pueblos. These differences led to the Pueblo revolt of 1680 that expelled the colonist from New Mexico for a period of twelve years.

Dorothy Stewart (1891 – 1955)Juan de Oñate’s inscription at El Morro

Circa 1930 – 1940 Gelatin silver print 8 × 10 inches

The Spanish king instituted reforms when the colonists returned during the 1690s. Relationships between Pueblo and Hispanic communities improved through intermarriage and expanded trade.

At the end of the 1700s, Spain could no longer support its colony and missionary efforts, hence religious art from Spain and Mexico became difficult to obtain. Local makers responded to the need for Catholic imagery by creating religious paintings (retablos) and sculptures (bultos) for use in Pueblo missions, Catholic churches, private chapels, and family homes.

While New Mexico-made retablos and bultos may seem to dominate the art of the period, Pueblo art also changed as potters incorporated Hispanic designs on their ceramics. The art of the Spanish Colonial period represented a dynamic relationship between Native and Hispanic aesthetic traditions.

Truchas Master, attributed to Pedro Antonio Fresquis (1749 – 1831)Santa Coleta / Saint Colette

1780 – 1820s Gesso and water-soluble paint on wood 17.9375 × 10.4375 inches

U.S. General Stephen Watts Kearny claimed New Mexico as United States territory when he marched unopposed into Santa Fe on August 18, 1846. Trade expanded with the Midwest during the American Colonial period that followed as railroads pushed through New Mexico in the 1880s.

The art of the region changed radically after railroads came to New Mexico. Colorful Navajo (Diné) “eye dazzlers” incorporated yarns and dyes imported from the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The aniline dyes in Germantown yarns were noted for their intense hues, primary colors. Unlike dyes made from local plants, aniline dyes did not fade.

After a flurry of interest, the eyedazzlers, which were used as rugs on floors, struck most buyers as gaudy in contrast to the restrained designs and subdued colors found in earlier Diné wearing blankets. Consequently the style lasted for little more than a decade.

Maker UnknownDiné (Navajo) Germantown Double Saddle Blanket

1880 – 1890 Cotton string, Germantown wool yarn and aniline dye 47 × 31 inches

Many people in the nineteenth century believed that Native cultures would soon disappear. Charles Craig was one of the first artists who raced to the New Mexico to record Pueblo lifeways before this would happen. Craig’s depiction of Santa Clara Pueblo presents a warm, colorful, homey view of Pueblo life.

Although Interior Courtyard illustrates the enduring Pueblo architecture and lifestyle, it was never intended to be ethnographically realistic. Instead, it reflects an artistic view of the Pueblo and the artist’s control of composition, color, and tone.

Craig’s painting alludes to Manifest Destiny, a nineteenth-century belief that God sanctioned westward expansion to dominate the lands of America. In the process Native cultures would be pushed aside and soon disappear. Associated with Manifest Destiny was a parallel view known as the White Man’s Burden. This belief asserted that Christians had a moral obligation to “civilize” Native peoples by converting them to Christianity. This painting defines what most people thought would be lost as a result of Manifest Destiny.

Charles Craig (1846 – 1931)Interior Courtyard of Pueblo, Santa Clara, New Mexico

Circa 1883 Oil on canvas 21.5 × 39.5 inches

At first glance Cui Bono? seems simple. The painting depicts a larger-than-life man from Taos Pueblo wearing traditional dress from the early 20th century. However, Gerald Cassidy’s title — Latin for Who Benefits? — implies a deeper, philosophical intent.

Painted just before New Mexico achieved statehood in 1912, it reflects the anxiety over political change. Will Native cultures disappear? What will be the impact of tourism, economic development, and cultural change? Cassidy’s carefully divided composition implies the distinction among the past, present, and an uncertain future.

Gerald Cassidy (1869 – 1934)Cui Bono?

Circa 1911 Oil on canvas 93.5 × 48 inches

Irving Couse captured the nobility of Native peoples and was not concerned with ethnographic accuracy. His 1914 painting Taos Pueblo – Moonlight presents a mythic Pueblo past enhanced by glowing fires flickering on Native figures. Couse’s large scale paintings were the equivalent of East coast history paintings and often referenced the nineteenth century romantic notion of the “Noble Savage.”

Couse’s paintings epitomized New Mexico art during the 1920s. After World War I, the Santa Fe Railway reproduced one of Couse’s paintings on its annual calendars until the late 1930s. These images were so well-known and popular that commercial printers used reproductions of Couse’s paintings to advertise businesses unrelated to Native life, such as clothing stores.

E. Irving Couse (1866 – 1936)Taos Pueblo – Moonlight

1914 Oil on canvas 60 × 60 inches

The New Mexico Museum of Art played a key role in the development of Santa Fe as a major art center. Kenneth Chapman’s rendering focuses on the new museum and the cultural institutions centered on the Plaza in Santa Fe. This watercolor emphasizes the art museum that would be built in 1917.

Kenneth Chapman defines the beginning of Pueblo-Spanish Revival architecture in his watercolor of the proposed New Mexico Museum of Art. While most tourists think of this style as historic, in reality it was invented after statehood to promote economic development.

This revival style combines modern building materials with aspects of Pueblo architecture and Spanish Mission architecture. The firm of Rapp, Rapp, and Hendrickson based their design for the art museum building on the Mission Church at Acoma Pueblo. The style sought to define Santa Fe as both modern and historic, as well as quaint and memorable.

Kenneth Chapman (1875 – 1986)Buildings of the School of American Archaeology

Circa 1916 Watercolor on illustration board 8.75 × 20.625 inches

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