Virtual Tours
The New Mexico Museum of Art is proud to offer virtual tours of past exhibitions. Virtual tours may be of special interest for our visitors who are not able to join us in our galleries. Click and drag within the tour to look around, or point and click to move to another part of the gallery. Small dots throughout the tour will reveal information about the art work, the architectural history of our museum, interviews with artists, educational programs, and links to our Searchable Art Museum. We hope that you enjoy exploring the galleries from home and we look forward to welcoming you in person in the future!
Western Eyes: 20th Century Art Here and Now
On view in the gallery from March 12, 2022 – January 8, 2023
Western Eyes: 20th Century Art Here and Now explores regional developments of modernism including American realism, Indigenous modernism and Native American art, and Mexican modernism. It will highlight southwestern modernist painting and sculpture and display stylistic developments including abstract expressionism, minimalism, and pop. This exhibition illustrates how the museum’s collection is representative of these significant art historical moments and how the modern artists of New Mexico have always engaged with significant trends on a national and international level.
Ansel Adams: Pure Photography
On view in the gallery from January 29, 2022 – May 22, 2022
Ansel Adams is one of the first names that springs to mind when people think about photography. This exhibition of sixteen prints from the museum’s collection, augmented with two promised gifts, concentrates on the photographs that Adams made around 1932, before he became a household name.
In the late 1920s, Adams shifted away from the soft-edged style of pictorialism, prominent in the early twentieth century, toward hard-edged modernism. In 1932, he and several of his San Francisco Bay Area compatriots formed Group f/64 and issued a manifesto declaring their dedication to “pure photography.” For Adams, that meant a commitment to the precision of the camera; use of glossy, high-contrast photo paper; and visualization of the final image before releasing the shutter.
Ansel Adams: Pure Photography includes close-up nature studies, portraits, and views of architecture Adams made during this formative time. A small selection of later photographs, including two of his most iconic prints, Aspens, New Mexico and Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. The artist’s hard work and ambition come to fruition in these later images, illustrating how his work of the 1930s developed into the mature style for which he is internationally celebrated.
Poetic Justice: Judith F. Baca, Mildred Howard, and Jaune Quick-to See-Smith
On view in gallery from October 9, 2021 – June 19, 2022
Mildred Howard, and Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith. These three innovative artists have for decades been creating complex works of beauty that evoke memory, history and emotion. The exquisite prose of their visual story telling draws attention to less familiar perspectives surrounding community issues such as land use, the environment, housing, civil rights, police brutality, and immigration policy. Painting, installation, film, and monument making are used to relay both history and hope from within and about society. By addressing equity, social priorities, and their impact on communities, these accomplished visual artists and teachers engage with issues that are both local and global.
These pioneering artists build bridges and cross boundaries to create works that educate, move, and inspire people. Their participation in student organizing, the women’s movement, and self-determination provided lessons, tools, and content for their work as artists, scholars, and educators. This exhibition will include artworks dating from the early 1990s to the present.
Storytellers: Narrative Art and the West
On view in gallery from July 17, 2021 – February 13, 2022
Narrative art tells a story. It can either illustrate historic events or bring the imagination to life. It can be somber, humorous, didactic, or entertaining. The traditions of storytelling in the Southwest go back to ancient times and the indigenous populations of the region, and include themes such as satire, agriculture and ecology, everyday experiences, celebrations, grief, and local history. The West has held a special place in the American imagination since the earliest days of westward expansion, providing a canvas for the expression of the nation’s hopes, fears, and aspirations.
This exhibition explores the various ways artists have told stories about the Southwest in their work, including illustrations of historic events such as Diego Romero’s images of the Pueblo Revolt, and paintings of local religious ceremonies a la Henderson’s Holy Week in New Mexico, ruminations on spiritual traditions as in Partocinio Barela’s Last Supper, reflections on modern art, as shown by John Sloan or Gustave Baumann, Sloan’s and Gina Knee’s comical lampoons of contemporary society, or iconic images of the West inspired by pop culture, as seen in Dunton’s “Illustration for The Fair in the Cow Country” and Billy Schenck’s pop cowboys.
Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Elaine Horwitch
On view in gallery from April 17, 2021 – January 2, 2022
Art dealer Elaine Horwitch was a major force in contemporary art in the Southwest from the early 1970s until her death in 1991, responsible for launching the careers of hundreds of artists from the region. With galleries in Scottsdale, Santa Fe, Sedona, and Palm Springs, she was a leader in fostering what has been called “new Western art” or “Southwest pop.”
This exhibition highlights the works of some of the Elaine Horwitch Galleries’ most popular artists. Drawn from the New Mexico Museum of Art, these paintings, sculptures, and works on paper reveal the breadth of art and innovation that occurred in the Southwest at a pivotal time of change. Featured artists include: Tom Palmore, Billy Schenck, John Fincher, James Havard, Fritz Scholder, Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, and Bob Wade.
Southwest Rising is organized by the Tucson Museum of Art and curated by Dr. Julie Sasse, Chief Curator.
Alcoves 20/20 #4
On view in gallery from February 20, 2021 – June 27, 2021
Alcoves 20/20 #4 is the last in the 20/20 series of Alcoves exhibitions. The Alcoves series features five, small, one-person exhibitions by contemporary artists working in New Mexico. The series highlights the wealth of artistic talent across the state. Working broadly across the fields of photography and painting, this installation will feature artwork by Karsten Creightney, JC Gonzo, Phillis Ideal, Cara Romero, and Donald Woodman.
Alcoves 20/20 #4 is curated by Merry Scully, Head of Curatorial Affairs, Curator of Contemporary Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
Breath Taking
On view in gallery from March 13, 2021 – September 5, 2021
Breath. It is one of the first things we do in life and one of the last, but in between we generally don’t give it much thought. In this exhibition, contemporary artists find inventive ways to express this fundamental and elusive act by measuring it, scanning it, enclosing it, evoking it, and reminding us of our own vulnerability.
Several artists approach the subject from a personal, meditative perspective while others consider the scientific and social justice ramifications, directly addressing threats to breath that have been at the forefront of public consciousness over the past year, including the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the use of choke-holds as a method of restraint for people of color.
Included are more than forty-five drawings, installations, photographs, sculpture, and video by artists Stuart Allen, Linda Alterwitz, Dan Estabrook, Brian Finke, David S. Goodsell, Cynthia Greig, Alison Keogh, Sant Khalsa, Marietta Patricia Leis, Shaun Leonardo, Tony Mobley, Jill O’Bryan, Peter Olson, Kim Richardson, Frank Rodick, Meridel Rubenstein, Don J. Usner, and Will Wilson.
Breath Taking is curated by Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
A Fiery Light: Will Shuster’s New Mexico
On view in gallery from February 20, 2021 – July 25, 2021
In 1920 serious health issues brought William Shuster to New Mexico, kicking off 49 years of creativity, exploration, and engagement. Almost immediately he integrated himself into Santa Fe’s burgeoning bohemian art scene, and made a reputation for himself as eccentric and passionate member of the community with an unsurpassed lust for life. Shuster embraced the unique beauty of New Mexico from Carlsbad Caverns, to Canyoncito and the Badlands. The artwork he left behind illustrates the rich culture of the state that gave him a new lease on life.
This exhibition celebrates the centennial anniversary of Shuster’s arrival in the Southwest. It highlights the artistic legacy he developed here in Santa Fe and elsewhere throughout the state and forefronts the significant artistic relationships he forged here. In addition to exhibiting the artwork that Shuster produced in New Mexico, it will look at his time as a member of Los Cinco Pintors, an early group of young Santa Fe painters devoted to “taking art to the people.” The show explores his relationship with prominent American realist painter John Sloan and his collaboration with Gustave Baumann to conceive of the now iconic Santa Fe boogeyman, Zozobra.
A Fiery Light is curated by Christian Waguespack, Curator of 20th Century Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
Word Play
On view in gallery from February 8, 2020 – February 21, 2021
Words and pictures have a long history of playing well together, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes contradicting each other. This exhibition of more than forty works of art in a variety of mediums features images by artists who incorporate letters, words, and phrases into their visual creations.
Among the delights of the exhibition are photographs inspired by the words in our everyday environment, such as shop signs, graffiti, and advertising, by photographers including Van Deren Coke, Miguel Gandert, and Walker Evans. Comics and cartoons offer another familiar model for joining words with images, as seen in prints by Betty Hahn, Jason Knapp, and Joyce Neimanas. In other cases, words and images work together in service of a social or political message, seen in pieces by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, David Sloan, and May Stevens. Notes, handwritten letters, and poems also make an appearance, incorporated into compositions by Meridel Rubenstein, Alex Traube, and others. These whimsical, poignant, and sometimes cryptic compositions are accompanied by a variety of word puzzles and games in the gallery that invite visitors to play along.
Word Play is curated by Kate Ware, Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art.