New Mexico Museum of Art

The New Mexico Museum of Art is Santa Fe's oldest art museum and one of the oldest art museums in the American West, occupying a landmark Spanish Colonial Revival building on the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Palace Avenue that has been a centerpiece of the city's historic downtown since its construction in 1917. The building, designed by Isaac Hamilton Rapp and William Morris Rapp and modeled on the Spanish mission churches of Acoma and other Pueblo communities, is itself a work of art that helped establish the Spanish Pueblo Revival style as the defining architectural vocabulary of Santa Fe.

The permanent collection of more than 20,000 works focuses on New Mexico art from the late 19th century to the present, with unmatched depth in the work of the painters who established northern New Mexico as one of America's most celebrated artist colonies. The Taos Society of Artists is well represented, with major works by Ernest Blumenschein, Bert Geer Phillips, E. Martin Hennings, Walter Ufer, and Oscar Berninghaus. The collection also documents the subsequent generations of New Mexico artists who built on and challenged the Taos tradition, including the Transcendentalist Painters of Taos, the Taos Moderns, and the contemporary artists who continue to make New Mexico one of the most productive art-making environments in the country.

The museum's Program in the Contemporary presents rotating exhibitions of work by living New Mexico artists and national figures whose work engages the state's distinctive cultural environment. The St. Francis Auditorium, located inside the museum building, is one of the most beautiful interior spaces in Santa Fe, with murals depicting the history of art in New Mexico covering its walls and ceiling. The museum is one of four institutions comprising the Museum of New Mexico complex, along with the Palace of the Governors, the Museum of International Folk Art, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, and a combination ticket allows visitors to explore all four at a significant discount.