WHEN THE NEW MEXICO MUSEUM of Art opened its doors in 1917, archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett (1885–1946) envisioned the downtown Santa Fe building—a swooping adobe example of then-new Pueblo Revival–style architecture—as a space to show works by local luminaries like Will Shuster and regional Indigenous artists such as San Ildefonso potter Maria Martinez. As the museum’s director, Hewett worked with famed Ashcan School painter Robert Henri to select 30 artists for the first show, which included Oscar Berninghaus, William Herbert “Buck” Dunton, and George Bellows.
In the beginning, the museum had an open-door policy. Artists could sign up for exhibitions. Some, like renowned woodblock printmaker Gustave Baumann, worked in the museum’s basement woodshop, making furniture and frames and crating art. Throughout its history, the museum has paid homage to its original policy with a series of Alcove Shows, or small solo exhibitions by local living artists, to demonstrate that new work by New Mexico artists is still part of its mandate.
But the New Mexico Museum of Art is not a large institution. Restricted by its location on Santa Fe’s historic Plaza, it has been forced to limit its collection practices. The 1917 building curbed the presentation of digital art, and the demand to showcase its stellar permanent collection conflicted with the museum’s need for contemporary relevance.
Hence, a new museum was born. Vladem Contemporary, named for donors Ellen and Bob Vladem, opened in September in the city’s Railyard Arts
