New Mexico History Museum Digital Dive— Into History!
Reflecting History
As New Mexico History Museum staff weather the coronavirus pandemic at home, their work on future exhibitions and educational programming continues.
A 1760 retablo of Santa Barbara painted by Bernardo Miera y Pacheco. Gustave Baumann’s printing press. A photograph of a woman in a flapper dress, circa 1920.
Staff are also devising current and creative ways to reach museum-goers digitally, ensuring that you stay close to the museum while staying home. These online offerings include community-sourced personal stories as well as featured photos from the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives collection. Visit these resources and stay connected today!
nmhistorymuseum.org • Digital Books • Digital Collection • Historic Maps as a Teaching Tool Curriculum Interactives • Lectures • Online Exhibitions • Palace of the Governors Online Exhibitions • Palace of the Governors Photo Archives • Photo Archives Blog • Podcasts
Palace Collections in Context
These are just a few examples of the wide-ranging collections at the Palace of the Governors. The New Mexico History Museum spotlights more than 300 of these objects, documents and images in the exhibition Looking Back: Reflecting on Collections, currently scheduled through March 7, 2021. Looking Back displays textiles, WPA-commissioned artworks, retablos and bultos, international art and artifacts, historic and contemporary regional photographs, and even an early 20th century hearse buggy. Lead curator Alicia Romero and her History Museum collaborators dug deep to find objects that tell intriguing stories beyond their beauty or value. Because of ongoing renovations at the Palace of the Governors, exhibiting what Romero calls “a small fraction” of the collection in the History Museum building was a rare opportunity to show these treasures in different contexts. Rather than letting the items speak for themselves, Looking Back expresses some of the difficult questions curators must ask about them. “Why do we have this?” Romero asks rhetorically. “Is it appropriate to have this? Was it appropriate to collect it? Was that a fair deal?” Left: Mescalero Apace moccasins, ca. 1880. NMHM/DCA 1990.414.013ab. Middle: Mescalero Apache bone awl and case, ca. 1870. NMHM/DCA 1990.414.010ab. Right: Jicarilla Apache moccasins, ca. 1880. NMHM/DCA 1990.414.005ab. Photo by Blair Clark.
Social Media • Facebook • Twitter Visit museumfoundation.org/ virtual-visit for links to all online resources.
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