Millicent Rogers Museum

The Millicent Rogers Museum is one of the great small museums of the American Southwest, holding one of the finest private collections of Southwest art and craft ever assembled, with extraordinary depth in Diné weaving, Pueblo pottery, Spanish Colonial religious art, and the work of the Taos Society painters who made northern New Mexico one of the most celebrated art destinations in North America. The museum was founded in 1956 to preserve the collection of Millicent Rogers, the Standard Oil heiress and fashion icon who fell in love with Taos in 1947 and spent her remaining years building a collection of Southwest art that reflected both her collecting sophistication and her deep personal engagement with the living artistic traditions of the region.

The Diné textile collection is the museum's greatest strength, including blankets and rugs from every major period and regional style, from the classic period of the early 19th century through the transitional blankets that marked the shift from wearing blankets to floor rugs in the reservation period. Alongside these textiles are outstanding examples of Diné silver jewelry, including pieces by historic smiths and the early work of the pawn jewelry tradition. The Pueblo pottery collection spans all of the major Pueblo traditions, with particular depth in San Ildefonso black-on-black ware, Acoma polychrome, and historic Hopi work. The Spanish Colonial collection documents four centuries of devotional art making in New Mexico, with santos, retablos, and furniture that represent the full range of the tradition.

The museum also holds a significant collection of work by the Taos Society painters, presented in the context of the broader collection in a way that illuminates the relationship between the Anglo-American painting tradition and the Indigenous and Hispanic artistic cultures that surrounded and influenced it. Contemporary Indigenous art is represented in the museum's ongoing exhibition program, which regularly showcases living artists whose work engages the traditions the collection documents. The museum's location on Museum Road, just north of the historic Taos Plaza, makes it an easy stop in any serious exploration of Taos's extraordinarily rich cultural landscape.