It’s been just over 100 years ago that Juan Pino of Tesuque Pueblo popped into the Santa Fe studio of Charles Kassler, and experienced his enthusiasm about linoleum printmaking – a new-ish way to make multiple images without using an expensive press or chemicals.
Charles offered Juan some materials to take home so he could try it, and Juan got to work. See the results in Printing the Pueblo World: Juan Pino of Tay Tsu’geh Oweenge, on display at Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts and Culture through August 17, 2025.
Unlike his friend Kassler, who trained formally at Princeton and the Art Institute of Chicago, Juan received his artistic training in the Pueblo world, learning observation, craftsmanship, and patience from the ceramic and textile artists around him. By 1924, booming tourism in Northern New Mexico had created a big market for modern and traditional pueblo ceramics (think Maria Martinez and Margaret Tafoya) and for pueblo painters, like Julian Martinez and Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal).
Juan Pino’s 1925 linocut print of people by the church in the Tesuque Pueblo plaza
Juan was an expert in wood carving, ceramics, textiles, and crafting dance regalia, but like most artists of his day, he juggled his artistic output with other income-generating pursuits – farming, gathering and selling home-heating wood, and posing as a model for Anglo artists flocking to the vibrant Santa Fe art colony.
Juan Pino’s 1925 linocut print of three corn dancers – depicting himself, Vecillio Herrera, and Candido Herrera.
For linocut printmaking, you just cut your design into linoleum – a relatively accessible material since it was manufactured for use in kitchen floors or wall coverings for new homes. Once the block was carved and inked, you could either apply manual pressure to make the multiple images or ask a fellow artist to borrow their press.
Carving images into linoleum came naturally, and Juan started depicting the world around him in Tesuque – not just romanticized images of Indian life. Juan carved and printed the daily comings and goings of his fellow villagers in the pueblo plaza and images of traditional dances.
For all the car traffic and hubub on the streets of Santa Fe during the 1920s, Tesuque pueblo life still had elements of traditional Tewa ways. Archaeologists have found remnants of village buildings dating back to 1200 CE, so Tesuque is one of the longest inhabited communities in the United States.
Juan Pino’s 1925 linocut print of two men harvesting wheat
Taking in the twenty prints in the exhibition allows us to see day-to-day life as it was 100 years ago in the historic pueblo – making ceramics at home, harvesting, using oxen on the farm at a time just before horses replaced them as the work animal of choice. We can even see detailed black-and-white depictions of the regalia men were wearing for the Corn Dance – including one print that likely includes a self-portrait!
After only a few months of making linoprints in 1925, Juan’s work was displayed at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Santa Fe and Pueblo artists celebrated his accomplishment as the first Pueblo artist to try his hand at printmaking. In Santa Fe’s commercial gallery market, however, tourists were more inclined to purchase prints and paintings that showed more romanticized visions of Indian life.
Juan kept creating, and seeing so much of his work 100 years later is truly a revelation – a set of quiet, enjoyable glimpses of everyday life at the foot of the Sangre de Christo Mountains.
Juan Pino’s 1925 linocut print of a voyaging man. Courtesy: Indian Arts Research Center, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe.
The show also has a beautiful touch that emphasizies Juan’s continuing artistic output: two large ceramic pieces from the Thirties and Forties created by his wife, Lorencita Pino. It’s likely Juan used his steady hand to apply strong, black lines – skills so evident in his masterful design for his slice-of-life print series.
Lorencita Pino ceramics likely painted by her husband, Juan Pino – a 1940 dough bowl with cloud and scroll designs and 1930 jar with bird and scroll design.
1925 linocut print of woman making pottery near fireplace…is it Lorencita?
Drift into another dimension in Light, Space, and the Shape of Time at the Albuquerque Museum through July 20, 2025. The show, with significant works from the museum’s own collection, harkens back to the founders of California’s 1960s Light and Space movement, but also presents work by contemporary artists – many from New Mexico – who continue to explore the same phenomenon.
The curators have arranged the exhibition to show how artists use light, space, and time as subjects through which visitors can slow down, contemplate, and experience.
Detail of Soo Sunny Park’s 2013 Unwoven Light, an installation that seems to move as visitors walk through it. Courtesy: the artist
For more, see some of our favorites works in our Flickr album.
The first section showcases works where artists use light as the primary medium. Visitors can enjoy works by some of the most famous innovators from the Sixties and Seventies – Robert Irwin, who inspired a generation of West Coast art students to think differently; Dan Flavin, who merged minimalism with industrial light; and Helen Pashgian, who makes magic from luminous resins.
Irwin’s 2011 piece appears minimal, but his six fluorescent-light colors can be activated in four different variations, and he associated each with agricultural colors of Southern California. You can enjoy looking at Lucky You for its purity of form, or contemplate Irwin’s recollections of home.
Two fluorescent works by Space and Light superstars – Robert Irwin’s 2011 Lucky You and Dan Flavin’s 1987 untitled (in honor of Leo at the 30th anniversary of his gallery. Courtesy: Thoma Foundation
Behind the black curtain, you can enter a tranquility chamber. Helen Pashgian’s 2021 installation provides an unforgettable experience to visitors to slow down and wait. What are you seeing? The frosted, peach-colored epoxy sculpture at center stage appears dissolve in the light-filled space as lights slowly change. It’s like watching show changes to the sky during a dramatic sunset, but it’s light, white, ethereal, and pure.
Helen Pashgian’s 2021 untitled (peach lens) – the lens dissolve into space as the light changes to sunrise and sunset modes. Courtesy: Tia Collection
All-star word artist Jenny Holtzer’s Red Tilttakes an absolutely maximalist approach with multiple LED displays – a too-much, all-at-once, never-stopping tsunami of emotional words from her own story about survival and trauma.
Leo Villareal’s piece Scramble is the opposite. Albuquerque-bassed Villareal creates a mesmerizing, tranquil, never-repeating abstraction by programming LED lights. He’s done this on a larger scale in his epic commissions to light the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and all of London’s bridges over the Thames. Here, visitors get a more intimate experience – slowing down to watch Scramble’s gently changing colors and know what they’re seeing is unique to the moment.
Jenny Holtzer’s 2002 LED display, Red Tilt. Courtesy: Thoma Foundation
Leo Villareal’s 2011 Scramble, a programmed LED artwork that changes constantly. Courtesy: Thoma Foundation
Larry Bell’s 1984 installation is the centerpiece of exhibition’s exploration of how artists use light, illusion, and technology to explore (and play with) our perceptions of space. Direct from his retrospective in Phoenix, Bell’s barely-there The Catis a delicate but monumental presence in the show. Huge, planes of coated and non-coated glass require a circumnavigation. Moving around, you can see how works are reflected and how some opaque surfaces block views of others.
Larry Bell’s 1984 The Cat – rectangles of coated and uncoated float glass.
Two nearby works by Santa Fe-based August Muth offer visitors a more intimate experience. Muth uses a holographic etching technique in which he creates the illusion of a “floating” image.
August Muth’s 2024 holographic etching Shadow Within Light. Courtesy: Pie Projects Contemporary Art.
August Muth’s 2022 holographic etching Terra Solaris. Courtesy: Pie Projects Contemporary Art.
The exhibition concludes with a magnificent installation by Soo Sunny Park – an installation of lights and plexiglass pieces that appear to move as you move through. Take a peek in this video.
Detail of Soo Sunny Park’s 2013 Unwoven Light installation with tiles that appear to move as the visitor moves through it. Courtesy: the artist
How does a Lakȟóta artist link dreams and artificial intelligence to imagine futures for her people? Experience five years of innovative installations in Kite and Wíhaŋble S’a Center: Dreaming with AI, on view at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe through July 13, 2025.
The IAIA exhibition – Suzanne Kite’s third solo exhibition this year across the United States – presents several installations that highlight her collaborative work that merges cutting-edge technology with Indigenous knowledge systems.
Download the exhibition catalogue here, and look at photos of the installation in our Flickr album.
2023 Wičhíŋčala Šakówiŋ (Seven Little Girls) and Wicháhpi Wóihanbleya (Dreamlike Star) use stones to translate Kite’s dreams into Lakhóta symbols.
In Iron Road and Dreamlike Star, stones and minerals (the building blocks of computers!) are arranged in Lakȟóta geometric language that suggest Lakȟóta quilt patterns. They’re placed atop a mirror to show resonance between the Earth and the cosmos (stars).
2023 Wicháhpi Wóihanbleya (Dreamlike Star) suggest that ancestor stars can point the way to Indigenous futures.
In this first section, inputs are taken from Kite’s dreams. Using AI, her dreams are translated into geometric Lakȟóta shapes created by designer Sadie Red Wing. Kite has figured out a way to bypass large-scale, commercial AI networks in favor of an AI model (run on her PC) that aligns more closely with Indigenous knowledge systems.
A digital embroidery machine has yards of embroidered black velvet flowing out of it. Oihanke Wanica (Infinity) is a collaboration with New York City’s Center for Art, Research and Alliances. As you examine the velvet, you’ll find geometric Lakȟóta shapes translated (using AI) from Kite’s dreams.
Nearby, there’s a comfortable lounge where you can watch Cosmologyscape, an interactive digital quilt – a public art project in which AI translates the public’s dreams into artist-created geometric symbols. It’s a collaboration with Alisha B. Wormsley, so the virtual community quilt manifests both African-American and Lakȟóta shapes.
2023 Oihanke Wanica (Infinity) – a digital embroidery machine stitches symbols representing dreams onto black velvet. Collaborator; Center for Art, Research and Alliances.
Lounge to watch Kite and Alisha B. Wormsley’s 2024 Cosmologyscape – Ai translates the public’s dreams into symbols for an ever-expanding digital quilt.
Installations in the other half of the exhibition shows collaborative projects that combine Indigenous knowledge systems and AI. Along one wall in the spectacular, tranquil gallery, you can explore a print and digital resource library on international research programs that integrate Indigenous knowledge systems into AI design.
Abundant Intelligences – a library and digital resource station for information on AI and futurism in contemporary Indigenous art.
Oneiris is a large interactive station through which visitors are invited to generate dream symbols that AI adds into a wall-sized display that looks like a portal to the cosmos. Inspired by the Lakȟóta concept of a Dream Language, she and her many technical collaborators genuinely bring dreams to life.
Oneiris – a collaborative project using advanced AI models to allow visitors to bring dreams to life.
Spashed across the final wall of the space, The Land Paints Itself is a video collaboration with her Wíhaŋble S’a Center for Indigenous AI at Bard – a lab that explores Indigenous advances in this science and art. Watch as AI generates dazzling colors and patterns as four Lakȟóta dream about Indigenous futures. Kite suggests that the evolving technology of dreams is a legitimate way for her nation to envision ways forward.
2025 The Land Paints Itself video that uses AI to illustrate Lakhóta people’s dreams about Indigenous futures.
Provocative, visionary, and affirmative – meet Kite herself in an interview with Artforum editor Tina Rivers Ryan in March 2025, when Kite’s work was featured on the cover.
With his traveling valise sitting in the center of the introductory gallery and a map nearby, you understand instantly that superstar artist Marsden Hartley was a man on the go.
Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts, on view at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe through July 20, 2025, uses his personal possessions, works painted on two continents, and non-stop itinerary to demonstrate how landscape, life, and modern-art legends led him to create an epic body of work.
Hartley’s 1914 Berlin Series, No. 2 – flat, abstracted natural symbols. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Ready to travel – Hartley’s leather valise, address book and luggage tags. Courtesy: the artist’s estate; Bates College Museum of Art.
Looking around, there’s a wall of Maine mountainscapes he did in his thirties, a painting done just after Stieglitz sent him to Paris to soak up the vibes in Gertrude Stein’s salon, his accessories of rings and cigarette cases from Berlin in the 1920s, a Fauve-ist impression of Mount Saint-Victoire at Cezanne’s old stomping grounds in Aix, and photos of him and his dog at his Maine studio in the 1940s.
Hartley’s 1927 oil Mont Sainte-Victoire – painted in Aix, France where Cezanne once lived. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
The exhibition merges Hartley’s paintings from the Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection with items donated by his favorite niece to Bates College in Maine – items he collected as he traveled; sketches and stuff sent to his neice; his camera, books, and snapshots; his studio paintbox, and other personal art. Together, the exhibition tells a story of innovation, personal journey, and relentless art making.
Hartley’s personal photos from his 1920s European adventures. Courtesy: Bates College Museum of Art
Hartley emerged from a hardscrabble childhood to see, feel, and experience art, nature, and transcendental spiritualism in New York, Boston, and Maine in 1890s.
He loved painting mountains and depicted water, earth and sky as a color-filled flat plane filled with jabbing brushstrokes – an approach that stuck with him throughout his life as he journeyed through New Mexico, the Alps, Mexico, and back in Maine.
Hartley’s 1907-08 oil Silence of High Noon – Midsummer painted in Stoneham Valley, Maine. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
By the time he was in his early thirties, he had shown his landscapes to The Eight, knocked on Stieglitz’s gallery door, and got a one-man show (and a dealer for the next 20 years) at 291, the hottest modern art gallery in America.
Hartley’s 1910 Untitled (Maine Landscape)– water cascading down a rock face. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Getting to Europe in 1912, the color, cubism, and symbolism of the Blue Rider, Matisse, and Picasso made his head spin. His German friends introduced him to Kandinsky’s book Concerning the Spiritual in Art. He went out of his way to meet the man himself, and his painterly wheels turned.
The second gallery presents a large work from his Cosmic Cubism series – an airy, dreamy arrangement of signs, spiritual symbols, colors, and planes – along with drawings from his Amerika series, based loosely on Native American symbols and other abstract shapes. On view for only the second time in the United States, Schiff is a dazzling creation drawing signs and symbols from Native American and Egyptian cultures that spill out onto the painted frame.
Hartley’s 1912-1913 Portrait Arrangement, No. 2, created in Paris. Courtesy: Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Schiff – part of the Amerika series Hartley painted in Germany. Courtesy: Vilcek Collection. April 5 – July 20, 2025
Up to this point, Hartley’s only encounter with indigenous American culture came from visits to ethnography museums in Paris and Berlin, but that would soon change. The advent of World War I tore apart the avant-garde, his social circles, and the direction of his work. Although these Berlin abstractions were long considered by late 20th century critics to be the high point of his career, Hartley abandoned this artistic path when forced to return to the United States, started over, kept wandering, and went back to landscapes and still lifes to discover his “American” expressionist vision.
Hartley’s 1934 Autumn Landscape, Dogtown – a colorful painting made near Gloucester, Maine. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
The exhibition does not unfold chronologically. Instead, it shows how much friends, place, and spiritual encounters affected him.
Near the Berlin abstractions are highly expressionist 1930s rockscapes from Maine and pointy Alpine peaks from his return to Bavaria. There’s an example of his stripped-down 1916 “synthetic cubist” work in Provincetown, a 1917 New England still life painted in Bermuda when he was budget-bunking with Demuth, and a red-saturated still life that is a therapeutic tribute to his Nova Scotia friends who died at sea in the late Thirties.
Hartley’s 1942 White Sea Horse – part of a series with vivid backgrounds done in Maine. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection
Hartley’s 1935-39 Roses for Seagulls that Lost Their Way –made in Bermuda to honor his Nova Scotia friends lost at sea. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
In the middle of this gallery are vitrines with highly personal, everyday stuff from a painter who never settled down, stayed on the move, and always kept creating.
Here’s his camera, a scrapbook of personal photos, his 1923 published book of poetry, a few books from his library, and a little toy and pressed flowers sent to his niece.
Hartley’s photos from his 1917-1918 trip to Santa Fe. Courtesy: Bates College Museum of Art
Except for the Provincetown piece, all the surrounding paintings have direct, bold outlines, vivid colors, and vigorous, unglamorized visions – a fitting prelude to the last gallery of New Mexico landscapes.
Hartley’s 1919 El Santo painted in New Mexico.
The final gallery provides a panorama of landscapes, plus a dramatic image of a ridge of Mexican volcanoes. Hartley only spent part of
1918 in Taos and Santa Fe, where he traversed the hills, attended Pueblo ceremonies, and wrote about the indigenous culture. He also completed his El Santostill life with a black-on-black ceramic vase, a striped textile, and a Northern New Mexican retablo of a suffering Jesus.
But it might be a surprise to learn that all of the Southwest landscapes were painted in Berlin in the 1920s – fittingly called his New Mexico “recollections” – or in Mexico in the 1930s.
Floating clouds, expressive lines, and abstracted mountains – all from his vivid mind and recollections of spiritual and physical experiences long past. In the 21st century, increasing numbers of art historians and artists have looked to this phase of Hartley’s work for insight and inspiration – bold brushwork, expressive memory, and both a spiritual and emotional creative process.
Hartley’s 1923 oil New Mexico Recollection #14– painted in Berlin based upon memories of his year in the Southwest. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Hartley’s 1932 oil Lost Country – Petrified Sand Hills – a symbolic landscape inspired by mystical texts he discovered while painting in Mexico. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Toward the end of his life, the accolades, awards, honors, and retrospective exhibitions came his way, but Hartley remained the hardscrabble “painter of Maine,” barely interested in cashing the checks.
His niece, who preserved her uncle’s posessions and legacy after his death in 1943, took a train trip to New Mexico for the first time to see the landscapes that so inspired her uncle. Upon emerging from the train at the stop near Santa Fe, she looked up to take in the big, dramatic, cloud-filled sky. Thinking of all her uncle’s landscapes, she said, “Those clouds…I’d recognize them anywhere!”
If you see this show in Santa Fe, you will, too.
Louise Zelda Young’s 1943 photo Marsden Hartley’s Studio, Corea, Maine, where he worked in his final years. Courtesy: Bates College Museum of Art.
To celebrate its 200th anniversary, the Brooklyn Museum decided to dazzle us with 500 gold pieces – Tiffany, Cartier, Egyptian, Renaissance altarpieces, golden sculptures, Greek wreaths, and eye-popping bedazzled fashion – in Solid Gold, on view through July 6. Half of the pieces are from the museum collection, and half loaned by private collectors and design houses. See our favorites in our Flickr album.
The ten-part show, spread across the museum’s two top-floor galleries deliberately pairs shimmering art from its vast collection with haute couture, gold records, and dramatic jewelry. The exhibition begins by acknowledging the ancient gold in Brooklyn’s Mediterranean and American collections.
Nam June Paik’s 2005 Golden Buddha checks himself out on TV. Courtesy: estate of the artist.
Known for its massive Egyptian holdings, the exhibition’s introductory gallery allows us to plunge directly into a mix of actual and retro Egyptian objects and fashion – golden Egyptian tomb fragments, Victorian-era faux Egyptian decor, clips of Elizabeth Taylor from her Sixties Cleopatra extravaganza, and many dazzling pieces from the Egyptian Disco collection by The Blonds, including the Cleopatra catsuit-cape that Billy Porter wore as he was carried on a litter onto the 2019 Met Gala red carpet.
Gold in the First Century: painted gold-leafed footcase from Coptic era Egypt; (rear) 1870 gilded and lacquered pedestal by Kimbel and Cabus.
From The Blonds’ Egyptian Disco collection: Cleopatra catsuit, cape, and headdress worn by Billy Porter to the 2019 Met Gala.. Courtesy: The Blonds
You could spend hours in the first room just taking in the gold, platinum, and diamond details of Jacob Arabo’s wristwatches; wondering how Galliano crafted a gown of Lurex pyramids; admiring Mary McFadden’s golden macrame gowns; or contemplating the 4th-century golden hoard from the Middle East.
But even more dazzlers await in the linked-chain section – 18th century Islamic helmets, Janelle Monet’s gold-braid wig by The Blonds, and a Seventies chain mini by Paco Rabanne.
From the Safavid Islamic Empire in Central Asia: a 1700 steel, gold, and silver helmet.
1971-72 gold, silver, and patinated aluminum cowl and dress by Paco Rabanne. Courtesy: private collection
A large, dramatic gold sculpture punctuates the first quarter of the exhibition – the dramatic piece by Zadik Zadikian is only plaster covered in gold leaf, but if it were solid gold, it would represent $1 billion in value. Visitors take a break here to circumnavigate the piece, watch a video and read about the history of gold mining – and its human cost – throughout the world.
2024 24-karat gold Path to Nine by Zadik Zadikian – a wall of 1,000 gold bars (gold leaf on plaster). Courtesy: private collectors
Golden mosaics, golden halos, golden chasubles, embellished holy portaits, golden uniforms, and golden coin containers from Italy, Mexico, Peru, China, and Japan line the next galleries, demonstrating how different cultures have integrated gold into private and public devotions, court, and the economy. In Italy, for example, one era’s minted golden coins are transformed into another era’s golden halos for saints in home altars.
Somehow, it’s a fitting punctuation to this section of the exhibit to encounter the epic, shimming wall sculpture by El Antsui. The “golden” glow emanates from recycled whiskey bottle cap
2010 Black Block by El Antsui, a wall hanging of recycled whiskey bottle caps.
The second half of the exhibition features objects from Brooklyn’s own collection and fashions that combine gold with other colors.
1720-25 gilded Meissen porcelain coffee and chocolate set.
Claudio Cina’s 2017 photo-printed skirt and top depicting Venus, embroidered in gold with gold studs and crystals. Courtesy: the designer
And then it’s just one golden haute couture gown after another – Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Cardin – accented by cases containing masterpieces of jewelry design by Cartier and Schiaparelli.
2021 embroidered gold silk haute couture dress by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Dior atop 1700-1760 gilt wood bed from Peru. Courtesy: Dior.
1991 gold nylon lacework ruffled cocktail dress by Pierre Cardin. Courtesy: Musée Pierre Cardin.
The final gallery – and it’s a stunner – shows how ancient and contemporary artists and designers use gold to signify special status and power. A gold wreath encircles an Egyptian man’s portrait, and Basquiat honors his friend in a painting by inserting his iconic gold crown. We get a chance to examine Brooklyn’s rare hammered leafy gold wreath from ancient Greece alongside a golden dress made by Dior for the opening of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
120-130 A.D. Egyptian Mummy Portrait of a Man.
Aya Nakamura’s 2024 metallic gold feather dress for the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Dior. Courtesy: Dior.
To see inside the gallieries and hear more, watch this video with Brooklyn Museum curator Matthew Yokobosky:
Since its founding in 1937 as an institution documenting Navajo ceremonial art, Santa Fe’s Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian has shifted toward collecting contemporary Native American art and serving as a platform to boost careers of emerging artists.
Virgil Ortiz’s (Cochiti) 2005 ceramic sculpture Monos Figure with Diego Romero’s (Chochiti) 2005 bowl Tenga Cuidado Con Griegos Salvo Obseqios.
For example, on a wall honoring T.C. Cannon, the curators showcase a crazy, irreverent David Bradley work painted in T.C.’s bold, satirical style, but display a rather conservative (and rarely seen) woodcut by T.C. himself.
David Bradley’s (Minnesota Chippewa) 1979 acrylic Remembering T.C. Cannon in the style of his hero.
T.C. Cannon’s (Kiowa/Caddo) 1977 woodblock print Hopi with Manta.
Contemporary textile artist Ramona Sakiestewa’s comment that her work represents “visual echoes of what came before” inspired the title of the exhibition. Sakiestewa’s tapestry incorporates colors and motifs of traditional Hopi wicker plaques. This theme is carried throughout the show.
Ramona Sakiestewa’s 1992 Basket Dance/9-B echoes a traditional woven Hopi ceremonial plaque.
A grouping of intricately painted Acoma ceramics pays tribute to the Wheelwright’s 1981 exhibition Sky City Salute that honored two matiarchs of that art form – Lucy Lewis, who lived at Acoma before and after tourists began beating a path to the ancient mesa-top city, and Marie Z. Chino. The curators match it with work by Marie’s grandson, Robert Patricio, who channels traditional themes into a modern ceramic context.
Acoma legacies: a 1965-85 seed pot and 1958 bowl by Lucy Lewis, and large 1980 storage jar by Marie Z. Chino.
Another grouping references the Wheelwright’s 2011 show Radical Recycled Jewelry Makeover with a bold piece by Kenneth Johnson and the Wheelwright’s stellar collection of Zuni bolo-tie inlays.
Kenneth Johnson’s (Muscogee/Seminole) 2011 necklace from recycled pearls, jade, gold, and silver..
1970s-1980s thunderbird bolo by Owen Bobelu (Zuni); inlaid silver, jet, turquoise, and mother-of-pearl.
The “salon wall” is peppered with paintings that tell the interconnected histories and styles of nine Native artists – the trajectory from flat-style styles of the 1920s and 1930s to more open innovation of Ben Harjo and Linda Lomahaftewa, some of earliest graduates at the Institute of American Insitute Arts (IAIA).
The exhibition also presents another group of work to acknowledge the artists who began working together in Scottsdale in the 1950s and who began IAIA in 1962 – clothing designed by co-founder/president Lloyd Kiva New and jewelry by instructor Charles Loloma..
Lloyd Kiva New’s (Cherokee) 1950s man’s shirt with Andrew van Tsinajinnie (Diné) printed fabric and Charles Laloma (Hopi) silver buttons.
Charles Laloma’s 1970 silver, coral, turquoise pin.
The local artist honored in Taos with a lifetime retrospective lives and works only 18 miles from Georgia O’Keeffe’s famous home in El Rito. But their work, lives, purpose, and legacy couldn’t be further apart.
Nicholas Herrera: El Rito Santero, on view at the Harwood Museum of Art through June 1, fills three galleries with work by a New Mexican wood carver who not only pays tribute to saints and ceremonies important to the nearby rural Hispanic communities, but also channels politics, social commentary, lowrider culture, and pressures of modern life in a mixed-up world into his craft.
Herrera’s Espiritu mixes religion with found car parts. Courtesy: private collector
It’s a colorful, irreverent, heart-felt tribute to the people, places, religion, and culture of the rural high hills that he calls home. And here’s Herrera’s self-portrait – the namesake of this engaging retrospective.
Herrera’s1998 hand-carved image of his favored protector La Virgen de Guadalupe. Courtesy: Evoke Contemporary
At first glance around the gallery at the top of the back stairs, Herrera’s work seems firmly situated in the tradition of the last 400 years of northern New Mexico saint-carving. Since the 1600s, when Spanish farmers first colonized these remote hills, the faithful relied primarily on local artists and carvers to decorate home chapels, churches, and shrines.
Herrera’s work is the 20th century version. There’s a grand, colorful painted altar honoring his brother in which a pantheon of Catholic icons gazing benevolently upon you. You’ll also meet his special icon – a bright, enigmatic Lady of Guadalupe.
In a small, dark room you’ll experience a powerful home altar, filled with hand-carved spiritual tributes, surrounded by candles and and all manner of other-worldly retablos.
But the next two galleries, you’ll encounter work using these same materials and techniques, but reflects life-changing events in the artist’s life that are mashed up with ancient spiritual traditions – Jesus in the back of a speeding cop car, Herrera’s own near-death experience in a car crash when he was in this twenties, and a crazy lights-flashing slot machine promising allures that only the Devil can love., or aerial views of old Spanish valleys.
Herrera’s 1994 painted wood and mixed-media sculpture Protect and Serve with Jesus in the back seat of the patrol car. Courtesy: Smithsonian American Art Museum
Herrera’s 1995 painted wood and metal Los Alamos Death Truck. Courtesy: private collection
Like all great artists, Herrera is inspired from life events and the world around him – reflections about his growing up and home life, land-use and traditions in his community, and issues ripped from the headlines, like the terror of transporting Los Alamos nuclear waste or issues with the border patrol.
Herrera’s 2008 mixed-media El Agua y la Tierra no se Venden, highlighting the importance of 400 years of protective land stewardship in Northern New Mexico.
Used car parts, toy parts, and other stuff from the junkyard “tell” Herrera how and where he might use them. Lowrider culture is an important source of price in Northern New Mexico, so it’s not surprising that he’s channeled that part of the local experience into his work, too.
The Holy Family hits the road in Herrera’s 2005 carved and painted Low Rider Nativity, embellished with cloth, toy wheels, and found metal. Courtesy: private collection
See some of our favorite works in our Flickr album, and meet the artist himself in this short video profile created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum:
Do you wish you could travel back to Taos in the Thirties and Forties to experience the quiet, small, out-of-the-way place that inspired so many artists? Take a walk through this two-site exhibition, Legacy in Line: The Art of Gene Kloss, on view through June 8, 2025 at the Harwood Museum of Art and through May 31 at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site just off the Taos Plaza.
Kloss, whose artistic style was honed in the 1920s and 1930s, is arguably one of New Mexico’s favorite artists. Kloss specialized in printmaking, creating an immediately recognizable style – a landscape, village, or pueblo scene with dramatic contrasts (often at night). Look at some of our favorites in our Flickr album
Kloss 1934 aquatint and drypoint Eve of the Green Corn Ceremony –Domingo Pueblo, which received a gold medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Courtesy: Couse Sharp Historic Site
Kloss fell in love with plrintmaking as an undergraduate art student at UC-Berkeley. She was captivated by the printmaking revival that swept Paris and Britain in the mid-19th century. Artists owned their own presses and produced affordable prints of landscapes and small towns that encouraged everyone to collect art.
Kloss 1941 drypoint Church of the Storm Country. Courtesy: Taos Municipal Schools.
A lifelong resident of the Bay Area, she first came to Taos on a car-camping honeymoon in 1925 with her writer-composer husband. She fell in love with the landscape, the culture, and the pueblos of Northern New Mexico. Did I mention she brought along her 60-lb. portable printing press?
Kloss 1934 drypoint All Saints Day Mass – Taos. Courtesy: Taos Municipal Schools.
Kloss was prolific, and the next year showed over 100 of her paintings and prints – including Taos subjects – at a wildly successful solo show in Berkeley. She and her husband were hooked on the inspiration Taos provided, and soon rented a getaway home, where they would spend two to four months per year.
Kloss 1934 drypoint Acoma. Courtesy: Taos Municipal Schools.
Kloss developed her images from quick sketches and from memory, bringing the drama as she precisely worked her impressions into the copper.
In the Thirties, Kloss did artwork under several New Deal programs and produced a nine-part series on New Mexico that was gifted to public schools in the state.
As a master of intaglio, drypoint, and aquatint, she developed an innovative technique in which she painted acid directly into the ground with a brush or pencil that allowed her to create super-deep tones, gradations, and atmospheres in her prints.
Few others could create scenes like hers – dramatic nighttime scenes at the pueblos, tiny pilgrims making their way at dusk among the mountains, or aerial views of old Spanish valleys.
Over her lifetime, Kloss would create over 18,000 signed prints, show in New York and Europe, and be honored with membership in the National Academy of Design. She always pulled her own prints in the studio, and kept on working through the Seventies, until the quality of commercial copper and ink that she had always used became unavailable.
Kloss 1950 drypoint and aquatint Desert Drama. Courtesy: Harwood Museum (Purcell gift)
The Couse-Sharp Historic Site (where the Taos Society of Artists was founded) and the Harwood Museum have mounted this fantastic show to honor a gift bestowed upon them by Joy and Frank Purcell, Taos residents and Kloss collectors that ultimately amassed over 130 of her works.
To see more of her work, watch this short New Mexico PBS documentary on Ms. Kloss with art historian David Witt, who talks about his friendship with her, her process, and unique interpretation of her Taos world:
An exhibition of dramatic, action-filled prints by legendary Abstract Expressionists shows how experts at the new printmaking workshops during the Sixties and Seventies gave art-world mavericks the tools to take their ideas to new dimensions.
Hans Namuth’s 1964 photo of Frankenthaler working at ULAE in West Islip, NY. Courtesy: artist’s estate and University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography
The main gallery shows them alongside prints by Elaine de Kooning, telling the story of how these remarkable abstractionists collaborated with different workshops, used their distinctive styles to create portfolios, and formed decades-long bonds with master printers.
Helen Frankenthaler grew up and studied in the ever-evolving New York City art world. Her studies with Hans Hoffman – known for teaching abstractionists how to capitalize upon the “push pull” of color – and her technique of physically soaking and staining colors across canvases laid on her studio floor put her squarely at the intersection of the Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painting movements.
Frankenthaler had her first big solo painting exhibition in 1960, and began her printmaking experiments the following year. Some of her earliest works in the exhibition are silkscreens – some in the color-field direction, and some more gestural.
Frankenthaler’s 1967 untitled silkscreen (1/100); published by Chiron Press in New York; collaborating printer Patricia Yamashiro.
Frankenthaler’s 1970 silkscreen (artist’s proof) (19/24) from her What Red Lines Can Do portfolio, published by Multiples, Inc., NY; collaborating printers Sheila Marbain and Patricia Yamashiro.
Frankenthaler’s prints are grouped according to her work with various presses, such as Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), Tyler Graphics Ltd., and Tamarind Institute. Often with the guidance of print masters, she experimented to see how her “soak stain” could be layered and pressed multiple times across the lithography stone.
The exhibition curators display a series of proofs and experiments at Tyler Graphics to demonstrate the artist’s creative process with the expert printmaking team.
Frankenthaler’s 1978 lithograph Bronze Smoke (36/38) published by ULAE in Bayshore, NY; collaborating printers Thomas Cox and Bill Gordon.
Frankenthaler’s 1987 Sudden Snow lithograph proof (4/12); published by Tyler Graphics Ltd. (Mount Kisco, NY); collaborating printers Roger Campbell, Lee Funderburt, Michael Herstand, and Kenneth Tyler.
Later experiments show off Frankenthaler’s experimentation with woodcuts and monoprints. Here, she inked a woodblock and ran it multiple times to produce a “ghost print” of the wood, then applied bright red over the wood knots and added bright blobs of floating colors atop the natural backdrop.
Helen Frankenthaler’s 1991 Monotype XVII, published by Garner Tullis, NY; collaborating printers Emanuele Cacciatore, Benjamin Gervis, and Garner Tullis.
The exhibition also showcases two dramatic print series by action painter Elaine de Kooning made at the Tamarind Institute. Check out Elaine’s wild lithographs of bulls.
Elaine de Kooning’s 1973 lithograph Taurus XI published by Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque; collaboraring printers John Sommers and Ben Q. Adams. Courtesy: Tamarind Archive.
The curators also showcase Elaine’s multiverse interpretation of a famous Parisian sculpture in the Jardin de Luxembourg. The series mounted across the long wall gives gallery goers a close-up look at the intricate collaboration between Tamarind’s workshop masters and a midcentury mark maker.
The exhibition also includes prints from plenty of other mid-century abstractionists from the UNM collection – Motherwell, Diebenkorn, and Lewitt – as well as prints by current UNM students who were asked to create art inspired by Frankenthaler and company.
Take a look at all of these action-packed prints in our Flickr album.
Elaine de Kooning’s 1977 lithograph Jardin de Luxembourg II; published by Tamarind Institute; collaborating printers John Sommers and Marlys Dietrick. Courtesy: Tamarind Archive Collection.
Photo of Frankenthaler’s 2000 woodcut Madame Butterfly made from 46 woodblocks; published by Tyler Graphics Ltd. Courtesy: Canberra’s National Gallery of Art.
Edward Olecksak’s 1972 photo of Helen Frankenthaler and Bill Goldston working on Venice II at ULAE in West Islip, New York. Courtesy: Frankenthaler Foundation Archives
How did a stylish, ambitious, saavy librarian toiling in the stacks of Princeton’s library at age 22 transform herself into the trusted confidante of the richest man in the world, helping him to build a celebrated collection of manuscripts, books, and art?
Find out in Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy, the blockbuster exhibition at The Morgan Library and Museum on display through May 4, 2025. To celebrate its 100th birthday, the Morgan Library & Museum wanted to honor its first director, Belle da Costa Greene.
Belle Greene’s 1915 portrait at home; Paul Thompson photo for a news story on NYC high-salaried women. Courtesy: Getty/Bettmann.
Belle decended from an illustrious line of African-American intellectuals, lawyers, cultural leaders, and social-justice advocates, but lived her entire life passing for white in the early 20th century.
Tebbs & Knell’s 1923-1935 photograph of Mortan Library’s East Room with most of the 11,000 volumes acquired by Belle Greene.
As a young, culturally oriented woman, Belle dreamed of working in the brand-new field of library science. Her impressive intellectual curiosity and research skills attracted benefactors who helped her with tuition at the best schools. Ultimately in 1901, she landed a job at Princeton’s library (when the campus was still segregated).
She came under the mentorship of library-science champiom Junius Spencer Morgan, J.P.’s nephew who eventually recommended her to his uncle who was building a private library to rival the best in Britain and France. The rest was history.
The exhibition tells Belle’s personal story, documents her acquisition triumphs for Morgan, shows her fame as one of the highest paid professional women in New York, and explains how she spent four decades building Mr. Morgan’s library into a premiere cultural institution.
Belle deftly navigated through society by gaining acclaim as a scholar, curator, and cultural innovator – often as the only woman on the auction bidding floor or at scholarly societies.
When she set her mind to something, she usually found a way to acquire it – even if it took years of waiting and entreaties. It was a quality that J.P. Morgan admired in her. He paid her handsomely, and trusted her completely to acquire works across Europe in his name.
Illustration for The World Magazine (May 21, 1911), showing Belle in action with at the auction of Robert Hoe’s library.
Belle Greene’s prized acquisition – the only surviving 1485 print edition of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.
She even convinced Morgan to embrace classical Islamic art from India and Persia for the collection before other collectors caught on to their beauty and drove up prices.
In 1911, Belle purchased this 1750-75 album of Persian and Mughal paintings owned by British Museum expert Charles Hercules Read.
When Morgan died in 1913, his son, Jack, asked Belle to continue in her position and oversee the construction of the Annex on 36th Street.
In 1916 (without permission), Belle snuck over to Europe during World War I to convince an English collector to part with the much admired “Crusader Bible,” a gorgeous illuminated 13th century manuscript. Mr. Morgan had once made an offer for it. After Morgan died in 1913, Belle met with the collector in person, struck a deal, brought it back, and presented it to Jack Morgan for the collection.
Jeweled cover of 1051-64 Gospels of Judith of Flanders – a 1926 purchase by Belle Greene and Jack Morgan.
1490 Madonna of the Magnificent, a Florentine painting that Belle conserved, still hanging in Morgan’s study.
Her expertise in medieval illumination and manuscripts made her a friend and advisor for life among American and European scholars, collectors, and museum curators. The Metropolitan Museum made her a trustee for life, and often consulted with her on medieval masterpieces, fakes and forgeries, and other acquisitions.
In Belle’s personal art collection – Lavinia Fontana’s 1580 Marriage Portrait of a Bolognese Noblewoman. Courtesy: National Museum of Women in the Arts.
From Belle’s jewelry– Benedetto Pistrucci’s 1840-1850 jasper and gold Head of Medusa. Courtesy: The Metropolitan Museum.
The curators tell her story across two galleries using items from the Morgan’s collection (including the many portraits of her!) as well as paintings, prints, photographs and documents from 20 other lenders. Take a peek into the exhibition and hear the Morgan’s curators summarize Belle’s ground-breaking achievements:
Explore the works at your leisure here as you complete a 3D digital walk-through on the Morgan’s website. You can also listen to the audio tour from right inside the virtual gallery.
Get to know this legend, and take a look at our favorite exhibition pieces in our Flickr album.
The ony question is – who will play Belle in the movie?
1950 photo of Bella reviewing her last acquisition, a 10th century Gospel Book from France. Courtesy: Harvard University’s Berenson Library in Florence, Italy.
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