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Spanish Colonial Arts Society
(505) 982-2226
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THE SPANISH COLONIAL ARTS SOCIETY
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By the time New Mexico achieved statehood in 1912, the artworks of its Spanish-American community had fallen in status to the level of curios. Historic furniture and bultos-freestanding religious sculptures-lay broken on woodpiles. Retablos (religious paintings on wood) from earlier centuries served as porch steps, or were invisible behind layers of house paint. Although aficionados in ever-increasing numbers had come to prize the art of Native Americans, very few people recognized the value of Spanish traditions, which had begun to go into eclipse in 1850, when the United States claimed New Mexico as a territory.
But as an artists' colony developed in Santa Fe early in the 20th century, a small group of residents, some Anglo and some Hispano, began to take a passionate interest in historic and contemporary art in the Spanish tradition. In 1925, two of these people-writer Mary Austin and artist-writer Frank G. Applegate-founded the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, with the aim of rescuing great works made in the past and winning respect for the artists who continued these traditions.
Among the first initiatives undertaken by the Society was the establishment in 1926 of the Spanish Market: the first organized showcase for the work of New Mexico's Hispano artists. Today, the Spanish Market is held twice a year, lining the Plaza in Santa Fe and the surrounding streets in summertime, and attracting more than 400 artists and 70,000 visitors annually.
The next step, as Applegate later recalled, was to establish "a permanent collection of the best examples of the old work, and, as we had the means, to collect them and place them on exhibition in the rooms of the Historical Society in the Old Palace [of the Governors Museum]." The first object acquired, in 1928, was an altar screen by José Rafael Aragón (ca. 1795-1865), which had been removed from the church in Llano Quemado, New Mexico. Installed on long-term loan in the Palace of the Governors in 1929, the work remains on exhibit there to this day.
The second major acquisition of the Society was nothing less than an entire church: the celebrated Santuario de Chimayó. This venerable center of religious devotion would very likely have been demolished, and its priceless contents dispersed, without the intervention of the Society. Led in this effort by Mary Austin, who raised funds by soliciting support from friends in the East, the Society purchased the Santuario, then immediately transferred the deed to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The transfer ceremony took place on the same day the Society was incorporated: October 15, 1929.
That same year, Frank Applegate was named the first Curator of the Society, and a new Committee on a Permanent Collection was formed, supported by donors such as the poet Alice Corbin Henderson and by Applegate's wife, Alta, who allowed the sale of some of his personal collection following his death in 1931. By 1938, the holdings had grown extensive enough that the Society could organize an exhibition with the Museum of New Mexico, placing on view 48 traditional art objects-hide paintings, Rio Grande style textiles, colcha embroideries, bultos, retablos, Mexican shawls, altar cloths and more-in the Palace of the Governors. The esteemed Southwestern author Paul Horgan wrote the catalog for the exhibition.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, notable donations came to the collections from patrons such as Mary Cabot Wheelwright; Dr. Harry P. Mera (creator of one of the most important textile collections of its kind); artists Andrew Dasburg and Gustave Baumann; Lois Field; and John Gaw Meem and his wife, Faith Meem. But during the period of World War II and immediately afterward, the Society was inactive; its collections, given expert care by curator Marjorie Lambert of the Museum of New Mexico, lay dormant.
Efforts to revive the Society began in 1949, sparked by the writer Ina Sizer Cassidy, wife of the artist Gerald Cassidy. She was joined in this mission in 1951 by the Philadelphia-born artist E. Boyd, who had moved to Santa Fe in 1929 and had recently been appointed Curator of Spanish Colonial Art at the Museum of New Mexico. In 1952, Boyd accepted a second appointment, as Curator of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, and launched a project to identify and recatalogue the objects in the collections with the assistance of Marjorie Lambert.
New acquisitions flooded into the revived Collections Committee, prompting the Society to adopt a resolution officially expressing the wish to establish a permanent home. According to the resolution, passed in 1952, the Society would eventually "undertake to furnish and install the contents of an old New Mexican house and outbuildings" from the Society's collections.
In the meantime, though, the collections would be housed in the Museum of International Folk Art, which was completed in 1953. Through an agreement with the Museum of New Mexico, the Society's collections were moved to these new quarters from the Palace of the Governors. The museum would benefit by exhibiting selected works, and the collections would benefit in turn from the stewardship of the museum's curators. Reinforcing this close co-operation was the expertise that E. Boyd developed, and shared, in conservation techniques. When she launched her major conservation drive in the mid-1950s, no accepted methodology yet existed for treating the distinctive materials used in the traditional Hispano arts of New Mexico.
Joining E. Boyd in her efforts was Boston native Alan C. Vedder, who had begun to collect Spanish colonial art after relocating to Santa Fe. In the mid-1950s, he approached Boyd for advice on restoring a retablo he owned and soon became active in the Society, as did his wife, Ann Healy Vedder. Upon the death of E. Boyd in 1974, Alan Vedder was appointed Curator of the Society, a position he held with distinction until his death in 1989. Some 500 objects owned by the Vedders were bequeathed to the Society, greatly enriching the collections.
Other major contributors to the Society's collections during these years included Cornelia G. Thompson; Mr. Y.A. and Mrs. Leonora Curtin Paloheimo; Kenneth M. Chapman; Byron Harvey III; Rebecca Salsbury James, wife of the master photographer Paul Strand; Amelia Elizabeth White; Mrs. Henry Lyman; Frank E. Mera; Norma Fiske Day; Eleanor Bedell; H.M. Berg, Jr; Margretta Dietrich; Anita Gonzales Thomas; William Field; Kay McElvain Harvey; and artist Cady Wells. Of particular note for the future was a contribution that was not a work of art: a parcel of 3.3 acres of land, given by Ruth Catlin in 1961 as a potential site for a museum to house the collections, or a fundraising tool to help build a facility.
While continuing to develop their collections, the members of the Society were also busy with projects that raised public awareness of the Spanish colonial arts. The Society installed period rooms at the American Museum in Bath, England (1961) and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC (1963) and made long-term loans of objects to El Rancho de las Golondrinas (1972), a living history museum in La Cienega, New Mexico. In 1965, the Society revived the Spanish Market, which had suspended operations years earlier. The Society added a Youth Market in 1981, to recognize the handing down of traditions from one generation to the next, and in 1989 launched the winter session of the market. The event continues to flourish today under the guidance of Bud Redding, the Society's Director of Spanish Market Operations.
In another initiative that would have great significance for the future, the Society launched an effort in 1988 to publish its collections, creating a "museum on paper." Joining Alan Vedder in preparing for this project was scholar Donna Pierce. In 1989, when she succeeded Vedder as Curator of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, she continued to inventory and document the collections, leading to the publication in 1996 of the two-volume work Spanish New Mexico: The Spanish Colonial Arts Society Collection, edited by Pierce and Marta Weigle and published by the Museum of New Mexico Press.
During this period, the collections continued to benefit from the care of Robin Farwell Gavin, Curator of Spanish Colonial Collections, and Chief Conservator Claire Munzenrider of the Museum of International Folk Art. But in 1998, the Society at last got the opportunity to realize its longstanding dream and build a home for its collections. An anonymous patron gave the Society a historic house in the Spanish Colonial/Pueblo Revival style, designed by renowned architect John Gaw Meem in 1930. The house and its surrounding land, located on the same hilltop as the popular Museum of New Mexico complex, was donated for the express purpose of serving as a museum building.
Through a $7 million capital campaign, co-chaired by Society members Barbara Carpio Hoover and Eileen Wells, the Society has now expanded and renovated the Meem house. Nancy Dimit-Lopez, chair of the Building Oversight Committee, has worked closely on the project with the firm of Architectural Alliance, benefiting from the expert advice of Society member Nancy Meem Wirth, daughter of John Gaw Meem. Gordie Arribas Holloway has led the landscape team in creating gardens on the new Museum's grounds. Donna Pierce, as chief curator, has organized the exhibition Conexiones: Connections in Spanish Colonial Art, working in close collaboration with exhibition writer Carmella Padilla, exhibition designer William Field and conservator and collections manager David Rasch.
"In speaking of the history and promise of our Museum, we must pay homage to the generations of artists, past and present, whose work is at the heart of our institution," says Stuart A. Ashman, Executive Director of the new Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. "Many of them have remained anonymous to us through the centuries. Others are very well known. Together, their inspiration and discipline have opened the doors to our appreciation and understanding of these diverse art forms. Now, as the doors of this Museum open to the public, their work will impart the sense of culture and community that makes this institution unique."
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