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BY KATE NELSON Back in 1917, John Pickard had a problem. A renowned art historian and archaeologist at the University of Missouri, he was leading the charge to commission murals, statues, tapestries, stained-glass windows, and bas-reliefs for the new state capitol in Jefferson City. (more…)
Categories: Featured, Visual art
BY JESS MULLALY Alexander Girard might be thought of as the man at the beginning of the rainbow. As collectors, designer Alexander Girard and his wife Susan amassed over 100,000 folk art objects. The densely populated Girard Wing, which opened in 1982 at the Museum of International Folk Art, is home to a mere ten percent of their collection. Like Steve Jobs, Girard’s vision was big-picture, but he also obsessed over the tiniest of details.
Categories: Featured, International folk art
BY SPENCER G. LUCAS AND RICK HENDRICKS New Mexico has long been world-famous as a place where people have made many important dinosaur discoveries. Fossils from our state have helped paleontologists learn much about dinosaurs, including how they evolved, how they lived, and how they became extinct. (more…)
Categories: Featured, Landscape and environment, Natural history
BY KATHERINE WARE Some places are so special that we can’t wait to visit them again and again. For many artists, the area known as Glen Canyon on the Colorado River was one such exceptional place. Photographer Eliot Porter first visited in 1960 and immediately made plans to return. Georgia O’Keeffe joined him on several trips down the Colorado, twice at age seventy-four and again a few years later.
Categories: Featured, Southwestern history, Visual art
BY CATHERINE S. FOWLER AND NANCY J. PAREZO If asked, could you name five or more archaeologists famous for digging in the American Southwest in the early to mid-twentieth century? Edgar Lee Hewett, Alfred Kidder, Neal Judd, Earl Morris, Frank Roberts, Emil Haury, and Paul Martin might come to mind. A few archaeology buffs might name Florence Ellis, Marie Wormington, and some Santa Feans might recall Marjorie Lambert or Bertha Dutton, but listing five women—or any women automatically—would be less likely.
Categories: Archaeology, Featured, Southwestern history
BY EMILY WITHNALL For Mateo and Diego Romero, being named the 2019 recipients of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s Native Treasures Living Treasures award is the ultimate homecoming. Although they have lived in the Santa Fe area for over 30 years, they grew up in Berkeley, California, with a Cochiti father and a non-Native mother. (more…)
Categories: Artist profiles, Indigenous arts and cultures, Visual art
BY DAVID ROHR (You can read Part 1 here). On a warm evening in August of 1917, a group of prominent painters gathered for an informal meeting at the Santa Fe home of Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett. (more…)
Categories: Featured, New Mexican history
BY C.L. KIEFFER AND DEVORAH ROMANEK Most exhibits take years to plan, which is antithetical for museums that aim to be responsive to issues of contemporary urgency in today’s technologically-driven world. Take the issue of the protests at Standing Rock. (more…)
Categories: Indigenous arts and cultures
BY CANDACE WALSH It’s an ancient question: what do you do with defeat? The question flows from ancient stakes: territory, sovereignty, self-determination, protection from harm. According to Buddhist principles, if you set an impossible goal and don’t achieve it, you will still succeed if you remain committed to it. (more…)
Categories: Editor's Letter
BY KATHERINE WARE It’s spring, and our fancy turns to flowers. For those who are not the gardening sort, or for anyone impatiently awaiting a hint of new growth, we present this frilly, exuberant iris by artist Betty Hahn. (more…)
Categories: Framework
![A group of people stand in front of dark mountains at night, with smoke rising from the peak and strong light casting long shadows on the ground. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/featured2018.16.11-400x225.jpg)
![A grid of colorful, square labels featuring various stylized sun faces and geometric sun designs, each labeled “RESTAURANT SOL” and numbered sequentially. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/suns-400x225.png)
![A fossilized dinosaur skull and neck embedded in reddish-brown rock. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/featuredC-400x225.jpg)
![A person stands in a rocky canyon with high, curving walls and a narrow stream, illuminated by sunlight streaming through an opening above. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/44OK-64-60_edit_cmyk_1-2-400x225.jpg)
![Four people stand among ancient stone ruins at an archaeological excavation site, with open landscape visible in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/featured_Dug_HP.1992.31.21b-400x225.jpg)
![Side-by-side portraits of two men; the man on the left has gray hair and a necklace, while the man on the right has dark hair and wears a patterned shirt. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/DiegoHeadshot1-2-resized-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
![Four children and one adult lean over a glass display case, closely examining the objects inside in a museum or exhibit setting. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/schoolVisitors_new-400x225.png)
![A man in a feathered headdress and camouflage jacket stands among a group of people, some raising fists, with a cloudy sky in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Friday-2256-400x225.png)
![A person in a feathered headdress holds up a large snake labeled as a threat, with text protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/MIACEditoon081916-400x225.jpg)
![A close-up of a white iris flower with ruffled petals against a deep blue background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/featuredimage001-400x225.jpg)