Museum Campus
The 1930 Pueblo-Spanish Revival Director’s Residence is the only residential building in Santa Fe open to the public designed by John Gaw Meem, one of Santa Fe’s most prominent architects.
The structure was built with single and double-wide Penitentiary hollow-tile blocks, not adobe bricks, as a more permanent material that was hand-sculpted to appear to be made of earth. Meem, along with Isaac Hamilton Rapp and Mary Coulter, were instrumental in the definition and development of our unique Santa Fe Style architecture.
Placement of this residence within the landscape is oriented toward Sun Mountain to the east, which is appreciated immediately upon entering the front door with views through the window wall in the east portal. The building with its furnishings has been accessioned into the Society’s permanent collections with catalog number 1999.011.
The Director’s Residence was constructed by the Museum of New Mexico on the Camino Lejo campus to house the director of the Laboratory of Anthropology.
Photographs taken in the 1940s show how the house was used. A breakfast area was located at the north end of the east portal and the living room was large enough to accommodate dancing with music played on the grand piano.
Later the historic residence was owned by the School of American Research, now known as the School for Advanced Research, where their director lived until the late 1990s.
The 1998 gift of the property to the Society was intended for the establishment of a museum with facilities for display and storage of its collections. Fulfilling one of the goals in the 1929 articles of incorporation, the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art (now Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum) opened to the public in 2002 with the inaugural exhibition and catalog Conexiones.
Most of the historic residential building was repurposed for display galleries with staff offices in the former maid’s quarters and public restrooms in the former garage. Very little of the structure was altered, maintaining the intimate character of room sizes and retaining beautifully crafted woodwork.
History
The Spanish Colonial Arts Society was founded in 1925 by a diverse group of nearly 100 cultural influencers, including local Hispanos and newly arrived artists, writers, collectors, and other history-minded aficionados. Among these notable thought leaders were author Mary Austin, artist Frank Applegate, newspaper editor Benigno Muniz, educator Nina Otero Warren, architect John Gaw Meem, artist Gustave Baumann, curator Dr. Harry Mera, and collector Dr. Frank Mera. Their collective interests and activism in the traditional Hispano arts of New Mexico were catalyzed through SCAS, helping to preserve rare artifacts, perpetuate living art forms, and transform the region into an international destination for heritage arts.
Following are brief bios of some notable SCAS founding members:
Writer and scholar Mary Austin (1868–1934) moved to Santa Fe in 1923 and was instrumental in founding the SCAS in 1925. While lecturing at Yale, she raised the funds in 1929 for SCAS to purchase El Santuario de Chimayo in order to save it from destruction. SCAS subsequently gifted it to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe to maintain as a church to the present day.
Writer and artist Frank Applegate (1881–1931) moved to Santa Fe in 1921 with his wife Alta, and they were instrumental in the founding of SCAS in 1925. Applegate began the SCAS collection and served as its first curator. He acquired the former altar screen from the Llano Quemado church for the SCAS in 1928 as its first major acquisition.
New Mexico native Benigno Muniz (1870–1945) was the editor of the Spanish-language edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican. A founding member of the precursor organization to SCAS in 1913, he later was a founding member of SCAS in 1925 and served on it first Board of Directors. He also founded and performed with Los Villeros Alegres, a traditional musical group.
Native New Mexican author and educator Nina Otero Warren (1881–1965) served as Superintendent of Schools for Santa Fe County from 1917 to 1929. An early founder of SCAS, she helped organize the Spanish Markets in the 1920s and advocated for education in the heritage arts of the region, one of the original and ongoing goals of the organization.
Architect John Gaw Meem (1894–1983) moved to New Mexico in 1920 and was one of the original founders of SCAS in 1925. Together with his wife Faith, he served on the Collections Committee and donated significant collections of heritage arts to the society. In 1930, he designed the residence now occupied by the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum.
Gustave Baumann (1881–1971) was an iconic Santa Fe woodblock print artist who was among the early founders of SCAS. Though best known for his luminous, color-drenched prints of New Mexico landscapes, he also spent a lifetime documenting historic New Mexico santos and engaging in other community preservation efforts. In 1929, when dire financial straits prompted the family that owned the historic El Santuario de Chimayo to sell, Baumann alerted the press. The publicity led to SCAS’s purchase of the property and its sacred santos to be preserved for perpetual public use.
Founding SCAS member Dr. Frank E. Mera (1879–1970) and his curator brother, Dr. Harry P. Mera (1875–1951), were active in early twentieth-century efforts to preserve traditional Hispano and Native arts. Both medical doctors, they founded Sunmount Sanitorium in Santa Fe, where tuberculosis patients, many of them artists, sought a cure. Avid traditional Hispano art collectors, they amassed an extraordinary selection of historic Río Grande–style textiles, later gifted to SCAS by Faith and John Gaw Meem. In 1954, Frank Mera gifted SCAS a 1780 retablo of San Rafael, which is the only known dated retablo by Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, the earliest identified New Mexico santero.
Fabiola Cabeza de Baca (1894–1991) was an educator and author born in San Miguel County and an early founding member of SCAS. As a home economics teacher and agricultural extension agent, she began writing as a form of social activism, describing the historical contexts of New Mexican cooking and agriculture as a means of preserving local lifeways in the face of pressure to assimilate. In 1946, she published Historic Cookery, the first known cookbook on native New Mexican cuisine, followed by the 1954 classic, We Fed Them Cactus, which recounts the nostalgia and hardships of her family’s four generations on the Llano Estacado.
Activist and writer Ina Sizer Cassidy (1869–1965) and her husband, artist Gerald Cassidy, moved to Santa Fe in 1912. An early SCAS founder, Ina was active in the organization of the first Spanish Markets (starting in 1926) and the curation of an exhibition of SCAS collections objects in the Palace of the Governors museum in 1938.
Mother and daughter Leonora Scott Muse Curtin (1879–1972) and Leonora Frances Curtin Paloheimo (1903–1999) were among the original founders of SCAS in 1925. They, along with their family matriarch, Eva Scott Fényes, who provided financial support to SCAS, were powerhouses in preservation, entrepreneurship and philanthropy related to the traditional Hispano arts and culture of New Mexico. Between 1934 and 1939, the younger Leonora operated The Native Market, a spinoff from SCAS’s shop, The Spanish Arts, which sold traditional Hispano artworks. The elder Leonora studied the traditional herbal plants and medicine of local curanderas, publishing books documenting medicinal remedies and rituals. In 1972, the younger Leonora and her husband Y.A. Paloheimo founded El Rancho de las Golondrinas, a living history museum dedicated to preserving New Mexican Hispano culture.
Descended from an original Spanish settler of New Mexico, Carmen Espinosa (1892–1987) published the definitive work on the history of traditional Hispano clothing. She was an early founding member of SCAS, which includes objects of heritage clothing in its extensive collection.
Lois Field (1894–1975) moved to New Mexico in the early 1920s and became one of the founding members of SCAS. She provided funding for prizes at Spanish Market and support for The Spanish Arts, a shop run by SCAS as a year-round venue to sell heritage arts. Lois’s son Bill helped set up tables for Spanish Market as a youth and later became president of the SCAS board and director of the museum.
Folklorist and author Cleofas Martinez Jaramillo (1878–1956) was an early founding member of SCAS who also founded La Sociedad Folklórica, an organization that preserves Hispano folklore, colcha embroidery, traditional attire, tinwork, literature, dance, music and art. Born in the northern village of Arroyo Hondo, near Taos, she spent her life writing books documenting local oral traditions and working to preserve and revive cherished cultural traditions.
Concha Ortiz y Pino (1910–2006), a twelfth-generation New Mexican, served in the New Mexico State Legislature, where she was the first female majority whip in the US. An early SCAS founder, she was active in many organizations dedicated to the survival of New Mexican Hispano heritage arts and traditions.
Boston native Mary Cabot Wheelwright (1878–1958) moved to Santa Fe in 1918 and became interested in the local Native and Hispano cultures. Best known for founding the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, she was also an early founder of SCAS, serving as president of the board and on the first Collections Committee. She also provided extensive funding for SCAS collection acquisitions and solicited donations of art from friends and family.
The following milestones reflect the growth of SCAS across generations of dedicated individuals and community effort.
Here’s a brief history of SCAS, from its beginning in 1925 to the public opening of its museum in 2002:
Founding & Early Activity (1925-1938)
1925
The Spanish Colonial Arts Society was initiated as the Society for the Revival of Spanish Colonial Arts by writer Mary Austin (1868-1934) with assistance from artist/writer Frank Applegate (1881-1931) and with the Committee for the Preservation and Restoration of New Mexico Mission Churches spearheaded by architect John Gaw Meem (1894-1983).
1926
Spanish Market was initiated during the Santa Fe Fiestas.
1928
The Society began purchasing Spanish Colonial art, with the acquisiton of reredos (altar screen) from the Nuestra Señora del Carmen church in Llano Quemado which had been replaced by a new altar screen. This carved and painted artwork, which was six-and-a-half feet tall, was made by the workshop of José Rafael Aragόn, the 19th century santero. This significant altar screen was installed in the Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza in 1929, and it has been on display as a long-term loan ever since.
1929
The Society was incorporated on October 15 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
1929
The Society purchased a private chapel, restored, and later deeded it to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe that same year. This Santuario de Chimayό is world-famous today as the destination of devotional pilgrims each year on Easter Sunday.
1938 –
The Society purchased fifty watercolors of colcha embroidery designs by Nellie Dunton. Most of the images in this significant portfolio were reproduced in Spanish Colonial Ornament, the 1935 publication that has inspired artists for many decades.
Dormancy, Revival & Institutional Partnerships (1938-1965)
1938-1951
The Society was dormant after Mary Austin and Frank Applegate died. The Society’s permanent collections were housed at the Palace of the Governors and the Museum of Fine Arts.
1951
E. Boyd (1903-1974) was hired as the first Curator of Spanish Colonial Art for the Museum of New Mexico. At the same time, she revived the Society and was appointed as our Curator.
1953
The Museum of New Mexico agreed to house the Society’s existing and future collections accessions in long-term storage at the newly constructed Museum of International Folk Art.
1965
Alan Vedder (1912-1989) was hired as Curator to replace E. Boyd and served as the first manager of Spanish Market.
Toward a Museum (1996-2002)
1996
Spanish New Mexico: The Spanish Colonial Arts Society Collection was published as our “museum on paper.”
1998
The historic house and property at 750 Camino Lejo were donated to the Society for use as a museum.
2000
The Stockman Collections Center was built as an addition to the historic house to hold the Society’s permanent collections and reference library.
2002
The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art (now called the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum) opened to the public in July.
Who We Are
Staff
Jennifer Berkley
Executive Director
Jana Gottshalk
E. Boyd Curator and Museum Director
Natassja Santistevan
Collections
Jessica Thirloway
Development Coordinator
Curator Emeriti
Robin Gavin
Donna Pierce
Volunteers
Josie Caruso, Textiles
Melissa Eason, Archives, Library
Tannis Eberts, Collections
Kathy Nelson, Archives
Laura Sena, Library, Visitor Services
Cindy Sperry, Library, Visitor Services
Edward Villa-Fernandez, Library
Patti Whitney, Visitor Services
Gloria Zamora, Library
Board of Directors
David Cartwright, Chair
Donna Pierce, PhD, Vice Chair/Secretary
Cathy Fernandez, Treasurer
Robin Gavin, Secretary
Jennifer Berkley, Executive Director
Audra Bellmore, PhD
Rosa Carlson
Jan Duggan
Victor Goler
Kristin Graham
Antonio Lopez
Barrett Markland
Jean Anaya Moya
Ra Patterson
David Valdo
Honorary Board
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham
Nancy Meem Wirth
Ambassador Edward Romero
Spanish Colonial Arts Society Founders
The Spanish Colonial Arts Society was initiated as the Society for the Revival of Spanish Colonial Arts by writer Mary Austin with assistance from artist/writer Frank Applegate and with the Committee for the Preservation and Restoration of New Mexico Mission Churches spearheaded by architect John Gaw Meem. It was formally incorporated as The Spanish Colonial Arts Society on October 15, 1929, with the following signators:
Mrs. A. S. Alvord
Frank E. Applegate
Mary Austin
Geo. M. Bloom
John D. DeHuff
Margretta A. Dietrich
John G. Meem
Frank E. Mera
Francis I. Proctor
Museum Founders
Seventy-three years after the Spanish Colonial Arts Society was incorporated in October 1929, its long-held goal to “acquire real estate or personal property for the housing of collections of Spanish Colonial art” came to fruition when the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art first opened to great fanfare locally, nationally, and internationally in July 2002.
The Spanish Colonial Arts Society is deeply grateful to its museum founders, whose vision and passion enabled us to first open our doors to the public 20 years ago and whose dedication since has enabled us to support our mission of collecting, preserving, exhibiting, researching, and promoting the Hispanic art of New Mexico, from settlement to the present, and comparative pieces from around the Spanish world.