Plaza Building

After more than a century of collecting, the New Mexico Museum of Art has become home to some of the finest examples of Southwestern Art by the regions most beloved artists. On the second floor of the Museum’s historic building, find treasured classics and new surprises in our permanent installation of twentieth-century art. Featuring work...

This is the story of a place. It’s a place where millions of years of the earth’s development are openly revealed and where the hopes and aspirations of the human race have been inscribed for centuries. Located in canyon country along  the Colorado River, Glen Canyon stretches down from southeastern Utah down northern Arizona, not...

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...

Western Eyes: 20th Century Art Here and Now will explore 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...

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...

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...

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,...

In 1918, Gustave Baumann moved to New Mexico where the formidable yellow and red landscapes and wide-open skies dramatically changed his aesthetic, shifting his palette from monochromatic neutrals to the brilliant and vibrant colors that have come to define his western landscapes. Baumann also encountered a diverse cultural environment unlike anything he had experienced before....

Poetic Justice celebrates the work of artists Judith F. Baca, 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...

Overview 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,...