Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance Roswell Museum, Roswell, NM
Diane Marsh "Bitter Lakes Wildlife Refuge, Roswell, NM" oil on canvas
Patricia Gaylord Anderson Gallery
Opened March 30, 2024
Long-term exhibition
Lee acerca de esta exhibición en Español aquí
Drawn from the Roswell Museum’s permanent collection, Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance is an ongoing exhibition in the Museum’s Patricia Gaylord Anderson Gallery highlighting the diverse artistic landscape of the Museum’s surrounding environs. From the Indigenous traditions of Native American and Spanish-American woodcarvers, to the creative communities of the Taos Art Colony and the Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) program, this region is a place that is rich with its own creative traditions while simultaneously attracting new artistic ideas and influences from around the world.
The Roswell Museum is a public institution that celebrates its grassroots inception and national significance. We distinguish ourselves through a community-centered approach that is in the spirit of our founding as a Federal Art Center in 1937 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a US federal government agency supporting communities nationwide during the Great Depression. Our institution was founded through an agreement between the City of Roswell, the federal government’s WPA Federal Art Project (FAP), and the Chaves County Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Historical Society for Southeast New Mexico). Initial exhibitions included displays of Historical Society collection objects, FAP traveling exhibitions, and cultural materials on loan from the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. Early in its history, the Roswell Museum began hosting local displays of traveling exhibitions from prominent museums throughout the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, indicating a local community interest in visual art and culture that transcends boundaries, and which continues to this day. The Roswell Museum’s initial collection was shaped by donations and purchases of WPA-era and regional artworks. Many of the works included in the exhibition Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance were made by artists who shared the Roswell Museum’s connection to the WPA, including Edward Chávez, Regina Cooke, Fremont Ellis, Lela Gutierrez, Maria Martinez, LaVerne Nelson Black, and Agnes Tait. As the Roswell Museum began to fill the role of fostering community through curating a range of cultural experiences, major donors came forward to infuse the growing collection with additional works of art. In the 1950s-1960s, works entering the collections reflected an interest in modern art, especially as depicted by Modernists in Santa Fe and Taos, NM, including Felipe Archuleta, Doris Cross, Andrew Dasburg, Louise Ganthiers, R.C. Gorman, Willard Nash, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Robert D. Ray.
In 1967, local oil industry businessperson, philanthropist, and volunteer Roswell Museum curator Donald B. Anderson conceived of a program that would provide “a gift of time” to contemporary artists to concentrate on their creative works for 6-12 months without distraction. Barbara Latham and her husband Howard Cook were the first artists to participate in the initiative that is now called the Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) program. As the main funder of this initiative, Anderson approached the Roswell Museum to oversee its operational logistics. This association not only initiated a contemporary art exhibition program that continues today, it also underscored the importance of supporting the careers of contemporary artists as well as the importance of adding contemporary art to the Roswell Museum’s collection. RAiR functioned as a program administered by the Roswell Museum for decades. The Roswell Museum considers the RAiR Foundation, including the residency program and AMoCA, as one of its closest institutional partners.Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance features the work of many RAiR artists, including Jane Abrams, Stuart Arends, Mala Breuer, Susan Cooper, Daisy Craddock, Eddie Dominguez, Susan Marie Dopp, Joe Grant, Lynda Long, Beverly Magennis, Diane Marsh, and Jerry West, among others.
Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance highlights the breadth of the Museum’s collection and celebrates the abundance of brilliant creativity in areas regionally surrounding the Museum ranging from our WPA artistic origins to the practices of current RAiR artists today.
Diane Marsh "Bitter Lakes Wildlife Refuge, Roswell, NM" oil on canvas
Patricia Gaylord Anderson Gallery
Opened March 30, 2024
Long-term exhibition
Lee acerca de esta exhibición en Español aquí
Drawn from the Roswell Museum’s permanent collection, Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance is an ongoing exhibition in the Museum’s Patricia Gaylord Anderson Gallery highlighting the diverse artistic landscape of the Museum’s surrounding environs. From the Indigenous traditions of Native American and Spanish-American woodcarvers, to the creative communities of the Taos Art Colony and the Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) program, this region is a place that is rich with its own creative traditions while simultaneously attracting new artistic ideas and influences from around the world.
The Roswell Museum is a public institution that celebrates its grassroots inception and national significance. We distinguish ourselves through a community-centered approach that is in the spirit of our founding as a Federal Art Center in 1937 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a US federal government agency supporting communities nationwide during the Great Depression. Our institution was founded through an agreement between the City of Roswell, the federal government’s WPA Federal Art Project (FAP), and the Chaves County Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Historical Society for Southeast New Mexico). Initial exhibitions included displays of Historical Society collection objects, FAP traveling exhibitions, and cultural materials on loan from the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. Early in its history, the Roswell Museum began hosting local displays of traveling exhibitions from prominent museums throughout the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, indicating a local community interest in visual art and culture that transcends boundaries, and which continues to this day. The Roswell Museum’s initial collection was shaped by donations and purchases of WPA-era and regional artworks. Many of the works included in the exhibition Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance were made by artists who shared the Roswell Museum’s connection to the WPA, including Edward Chávez, Regina Cooke, Fremont Ellis, Lela Gutierrez, Maria Martinez, LaVerne Nelson Black, and Agnes Tait. As the Roswell Museum began to fill the role of fostering community through curating a range of cultural experiences, major donors came forward to infuse the growing collection with additional works of art. In the 1950s-1960s, works entering the collections reflected an interest in modern art, especially as depicted by Modernists in Santa Fe and Taos, NM, including Felipe Archuleta, Doris Cross, Andrew Dasburg, Louise Ganthiers, R.C. Gorman, Willard Nash, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Robert D. Ray.
In 1967, local oil industry businessperson, philanthropist, and volunteer Roswell Museum curator Donald B. Anderson conceived of a program that would provide “a gift of time” to contemporary artists to concentrate on their creative works for 6-12 months without distraction. Barbara Latham and her husband Howard Cook were the first artists to participate in the initiative that is now called the Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) program. As the main funder of this initiative, Anderson approached the Roswell Museum to oversee its operational logistics. This association not only initiated a contemporary art exhibition program that continues today, it also underscored the importance of supporting the careers of contemporary artists as well as the importance of adding contemporary art to the Roswell Museum’s collection. RAiR functioned as a program administered by the Roswell Museum for decades. The Roswell Museum considers the RAiR Foundation, including the residency program and AMoCA, as one of its closest institutional partners.Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance features the work of many RAiR artists, including Jane Abrams, Stuart Arends, Mala Breuer, Susan Cooper, Daisy Craddock, Eddie Dominguez, Susan Marie Dopp, Joe Grant, Lynda Long, Beverly Magennis, Diane Marsh, and Jerry West, among others.
Here & Near: Surrounding Brilliance highlights the breadth of the Museum’s collection and celebrates the abundance of brilliant creativity in areas regionally surrounding the Museum ranging from our WPA artistic origins to the practices of current RAiR artists today.
