IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. Photo courtesy Tourism Santa Fe
On Wednesday, December 6, from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., NASAA is pleased to offer a selection of guided tours of local museums (within walking distance!) that explore the multifaceted cultures and histories of Santa Fe. Each tour is guided by a knowledgeable individual who helps you learn about the unique stories and forms of creative expression featured at the site. These are small venues and interactive experiences, so tours are limited to 20 people. Make sure to sign up early, and please only reserve a spot if you plan to actually attend.
The deadline to sign up for a tour was Wednesday, November 22.
For over half a century, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) has fostered an environment where emerging Indigenous artists have had the freedom to develop the means to tell their own stories in their own ways. The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) is the country’s only museum for exhibiting, collecting and interpreting the most progressive work of contemporary Native artists.
MoCNA is dedicated solely to advancing the scholarship, discourse and interpretation of contemporary Native art for regional, national and international audiences—as such, it stewards over 10,000 contemporary Indigenous artworks (created 1962 to present). MoCNA is at the forefront of contemporary Native art presentation and strives to be flexible, foresighted and risk-taking in its exhibitions and programs.
New Mexico Museum of Art. Photo by Liz Coughlan/Shutterstock
The New Mexico Museum of Art houses more than 20,000 works of American and European art, including paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, photographs, new media and conceptual works. The focus of the collection is on American art, with an emphasis on artists working in the Southwest.
The museum is known for its extensive collections of the Taos Society of Artists and Los Cinco Pintores, the five painters who moved to Santa Fe in the 1920s and helped establish the community as a famous art colony. The museum also features an important collection of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings, works by the great woodblock printmaker and painter Gustave Baumann, and American photographers, including the Jane Reese Williams Collection of women photographers.
The New Mexico Museum of Art is the oldest art museum in the state. Built in 1917, the structure itself is a work of art, considered a masterpiece of Pueblo Revival architecture and the best representation of the synthesis of Native American and Spanish Colonial design styles.
New Mexico History Museum’s Palace of the Governors. Photo by T. Harmon Parkhurst
The New Mexico History Museum features 3-1/2 floors of exhibitions telling the stories that made the American West, from the early lives of Native peoples to Spanish colonists, the Mexican era, Santa Fe Trail merchants, the railroad, cowboys, outlaws, scientists and hippies. Artifacts, films and computer interactives make history come alive in the state’s newest museum.
Now part of the History Museum, the Palace of the Governors is the nation’s oldest continuously occupied public building and the state’s oldest museum, with exhibits that include a collection of santos and the famed Segesser Hides.
The museum campus includes the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library and Photo Archives, the Palace Print Shop & Bindery, and the Native American Artisans Program.