Collections

The University of New Mexico Art Museum’s permanent collection of prints and rare printed books, numbering over ten thousand, spans the history of the graphic arts from 1493 to the present, and constitutes, along with the photography collection, the heart of the museum’s permanent collection. Within the museum’s extensive holdings it is possible to trace the critical, intellectual and aesthetic breadth of the history of the printed image through a myriad of historical and contemporary processes and techniques.

Among the significant works in the collection are folio leaves from the Weltchronik also known as the Nuremburg Chronicles, Old Master prints by Albrecht Dürer, Hendrick Goltzius, Lucas Cranach, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi; lithographs by Honoré Daumier, Eugéne Delacroix, Paul Gavarni, George Grosz, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Billy Al Bengston and two volumes from the nineteenth-century French publication Voyages Pittoresques et Romantique dans l’Ancienne France.

The collection also contains relief and intaglio images by Ferdinand Bol, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Karl Schmidt-Rotluff, Wassily Kandinsky, Milton Avery, Rockwell Kent, William Kentridge and screenprints by Andy Warhol, Matthew Barney and Richard Prince. The Latin American holdings include an important set of prints from the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) founded in Mexico City in 1937 by Leopoldo Méndez, Pablo O’Higgins and Luis Arenal.

The University of New Mexico’s permanent collection includes many significant works of modern and contemporary painting and sculpture as well as collections of historic European and Spanish Colonial paintings, retablos, and polychrome wood sculpture, as well as African sculpture.

Paintings by many noted artists with New Mexico connections such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Richard Diebenkorn, Agnes Martin, and Frederick Hammersley, are represented in the collection, as are works by renowned artists from the East and West Coasts, and from Europe including Bridget Riley, Robert Ryman, Joan Brown, and Bruce Connor. Historic paintings in the collection span the 15th century to the 19th century and include works by Antiveduto Grammatica, Juan Correa, Jan van de Velde III, and Lodovico Lipparini. among others.

The museum’s sculpture collection includes significant works of 20th century bronze and steel sculpture by artists such as Alexander Archipenko, Gaston Lachaise, David Hare and Mark di Suvero. The collection also includes contemporary sculpture in a variety of media by artists such as Luis Tapia, Luis Jiménez, Donald Judd, John Chamberlin, and Katharina Fritsch.

The UNM Art Museum is the archive for Tamarind Institute, founded in the 1960s by June Wayne (1918-2011) in Los Angeles, and accordingly collects and preserves multiple impressions of all lithographs executed at Tamarind from its early days in California to the present in Albuquerque. In addition, the museum holds and maintains the estate of Clinton Adams (1920-2002), which includes paintings and his graphic œuvre.

Adams, who worked closely with June Wayne during the early genesis of Tamarind, eventually brought the lithography workshop to New Mexico under the umbrella of the university in 1969. He was an indefatigable artist and writer whose scholarship on both the history and technique of lithography was instrumental in renewing interest in and appreciation for lithography. Adams served as the director of Tamarind Institute from 1970-1985 and Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the university from 1961-1976.

These works may not be on view depending on our exhibition schedule.  Please visit our Current Exhibitions page to see what is currently on view.

There are more than 2,400 artworks in the Raymond Jonson Collection. The largest and most significant portion is composed of 600 paintings and drawings by Raymond Jonson selected by the artist in 1978 as most representative of his 65 year career.  Other artists in  the collection include Agnes Martin, Elaine DeKooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Josef Albers and members of the Transcendental Painting Group (1938-1942), co-founded by Jonson and Taos painter Emil Bisttram. A student collection consists of artworks by many of Jonson’s students during his 20 year tenure as professor of art (1934-1954).

The University of New Mexico Art Museum holds the copyright to all of Raymond Jonson’s works.  The museum’s archival holdings include an extensive group of letters, articles, photographs, and other documents by and about Jonson, the Chicago Little Theatre, and the Transcendental Painting Group.

The UNM Art Museum is proud to launch the Raymond Jonson Web Portal, a virtual look into the life and work of the artist. While he was a notable painter in New Mexico and a well-respected educator at UNM, Jonson’s contributions to Modernism and American art have remained relatively unexplored. Through the resources made available in the Raymond Jonson Web Portal, researchers have access to a much broader view of Jonson’s legacy.

The Enyeart/Malone Library comprises a significant collection of twentieth-century monographs and other books related to photography and photographic history, many of which are rare signed first editions.  The Archive contains materials from James Enyeart’s long professional career as an arts administrator at the George Eastman House and Center for Creative Photography, among other appointments.

These materials include exhibition records, correspondence between photographers and other artists, audio, video tapes, and other media files that profile artists’ lives. It also includes original research, correspondence, and manuscript drafts from Roxanne Malone’s career at the College of Santa Fe and other institutions.

The library/archive is open by appointment only. Please contact Angel Jiang, Curator of Collections and Study Room Initiatives, at (505) 277-2953 or ajiang1@unm.edu, to schedule an appointment.