Tag Archives: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives

New Mexico History Museum makes new Gustave Baumann collections available to researchers

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Gustave Baumann and marionettes, circa 1959

Santa Fe, NM – New Mexico History Museum (NMHM) is the home for new collections about the life and work of internationally acclaimed artist and printer Gustave Baumann. Born in Germany, Baumann was an internationally noted printer and artist who settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1918. He died in 1971. 

In 2021, the Ann Baumann Trust donated a substantial collection of Gustave Baumann’s documents and photographs to NMHM. The new gift, along with previously donated Baumann material, is now open to researchers by appointment.  

The newly available papers include Baumann’s correspondence with his wide circle of friends, his annual hand-printed Christmas cards, letters between museum collections throughout the United States, photographs of Santa Fe, and the naturalization certificate he received upon becoming a United States citizen in 1904. Some of the materials were previously featured in In a Modern Rendering: The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné by Gala Chamberlain and Nancy E. Green, published by Rizzoli Electa. In addition to archival materials, the donation included more than 200 of Baumann’s wood printing blocks.

“These materials provide detailed insights into Gustave Baumann’s personal relationships and business practices. They are an important resource for anyone wanting to better understand Mr. Baumann and his times,” said Billy G. Garrett, executive director of NMHM. 

The work has been spearheaded by Alice Wehling, a contract archivist working with museum staff, who processed and organized the collection, and Madisyn Rostro, a project collections assistant who catalogued and photographed the wood print blocks. Funding for this work was provided by the Ann Baumann Trust.  

Baumann family marionettes, circa 1959

Researchers, including art collectors and students of Southwestern history, can discover what’s available by browsing new finding aids that describe the organization and content of the collection. The finding aids for both the papers and photographs are now available via the New Mexico Archives Online website. Researchers who wish to see the Baumann papers should arrange an appointment with the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library; appointments to view photographs should be made with the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives. The next phase of the project will selectively digitize items from the collections and make them available online. 

Other Baumann-related materials, principally his artwork and marionettes, are included in the collections of the New Mexico Museum of Art, also a part of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.  

Spotlight: New Mexico History Museum Summer Interns

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FATIMA DEL ANGEL GUEVARA: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives

Fatima working with an album in the Photo Archives processing room.

Fatima Del Angel Guevara joined the NMHM Palace of the Governors Photo Archives as one of our Summer 2023 interns. A graduate student pursuing a doctorate in Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, Fatima is also interested in exploring the archival field, and has worked as a research assistant at UNM’s Center for Southwest Research before starting her internship with the NMHM. She is particularly skilled at creating bilingual English/ Spanish metadata for archival collections and identified a need for bilingual finding aids on the New Mexico Archives Online platform. During her first month she at the Photo Archives, Fatima has already worked on four projects involving collections of photographs related to the Mexican Revolution, the Mexican Border War and the United States Mexican Expedition, topics she became familiar with during her Masters in Latin American Studies that she completed at UNM.  After revising and translating metadata into Spanish and English and creating bilingual finding aids for the Casasola, Musgrave, Farnsworth Photographs of the Mexican Punitive Expedition, and Views of Central America photograph collections, Fatima is currently working on rehousing and writing the metadata for a collection of photographs of Mexico. 

However, an internship at the Photo Archives does not mean it’s all work and no fun for Fatima. Asked what she enjoys the most beside getting a hands-on experience with our amazing photograph resources, Fatima’s answer was “visiting the New Mexico History Museum and the other museums in Santa Fe and getting to enjoy Santa Fe in the summer.” Does she have a hobby? Yes, hiking. And her favorite color? Green. 

MATHIEU DEBIC: Fray Angélico Chávez Library

Mathieu surveying archival collections in the Chavez Library.

Mathieu Debic is also a UNM graduate student, specializing in Philosophy and Museum Studies.  This summer internship is an opportunity for him to figure out whether library and archival work would be a good career fit for him. The Chavez Library has started to benefit from Mathieu’s skills and previous experience as a graduate fellow at UNM’s Center for Southwest Research, and he has already been involved in several projects this month. He has contributed a great deal to NMHM’s accession processing report by tracking down old accession paperwork and updating the existing documentation. He has processed several additions to existing collections and has processed and digitized the Westfall Cigar Box Label Collection, a colorful and rich archival resource, and has also written and published the finding aid. His current project involves revising the metadata for the library’s map collection. Mathieu recently joined librarian Kathleen Dull on a visit to the house of author Lucy Lippard, who is donating her research collection to the Chávez Library. Not much can come closer to a hands-on experience with collection acquisition procedures than moving sixteen boxes and reviewing inventory lists, with the added bonus of meeting the donor in person. In addition, Mathieu has started revising the periodical collection retention policies – it turns out that this has been Mathieu’s favorite project so far, as he is interested in comparing journal retention policies at an academic library vs. the Chavez Library, whose focus is more specialized and tied to NMHM’s mission and scope. Ultimately, Mathieu hopes that an updated periodical retention policy will help to free up some much-needed space on the library’s shelves to the benefit of rare books and archival collections.

Outside of work, Mathieu likes to spend some of his free time on gardening, and is grateful that Albuquerque’s climate and sandy soil allows him to experiment growing a variety of plants. Not surprisingly, given his green thumb, Mathieu’s favorite color is green.

We are fortunate to have Fatima and Mathieu share their skills and expertise with us this summer, and we hope that this internship is a rewarding experience for both of them.

Working On the Railroad – The Virtual Exhibition

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A view of the entrance of the Working on the Railroad exhibition

When the railroad came to New Mexico in 1879, it brought thousands of job opportunities for local people from rural villages, reservations, and larger towns. In addition to the homegrown workforce, the railroad also brought immigrant Chinese, European, and Mexican laborers to our state. The workforce included women and people of color, immigrants and Native Americans, young and old.

Told through historic and contemporary images from the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives and the The Library of Congress, “Working on the Railroad” fosters appreciation for these people—the steel gangs and machinists, car cleaners and conductors—included in the story of how the railroad changed New Mexico. Along with the photographs, artifacts such as oversized machinist’s wrenches, early twentieth-century railroad lanterns, brass locks, and railroad tie dating nails help the visitor imagine what it was like working on the railroad.

While we remain closed, please enjoy this virtual tour of NMHM’s “Working on the Railroad.” You can watch the New Mexico PBS ¡Colores! episode, “Albuquerque’s Historic Railroad Shops” from within the exhibition.
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=z9uNNHsiPED

Seeing the Palace Through a Pinhole

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PalacePinhole (2)

During the 2012 Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, Heather Oelklaus, a photographer and print workshop supervisor at Colorado College, was talking with some friends about the wonders of capturing the world the old-fashioned way. One of them asked her about the largest pinhole camera she’d ever used. At that point, it was an aluminum trash can that required two pieces of 16×20” photo paper for film. But the question made her want to go even bigger.

“I proclaimed that by next year’s pinhole day, I would be shooting with a truck,” she said.

LittleMissSunshineIt took some scouting around before she found a 14-foot 1977 Chevy box truck with an uncanny resemblance to a yellow Kodak film box. She tackled drilling, painting, designing and light-tighting it while her imagination reeled out possible photo opps. In 2013, the newly designed pinhole truck, dubbed Little Miss Sunshine, took to the open road, shooting enough images to stage a show this year at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo, Colo.

By then, Oelklaus (learn more about her by clicking here) had fallen in love with our exhibit, Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography. “When I saw it the first time, I wept,” she said. “It sounds melodramatic, but to know there were people and a museum that understood what I loved about pinhole photography overwhelmed me.”

Photo Curator Daniel Kosharek and Palace Press Curator Tom Leech found out about her big truck and hatched a plot to shoot our beloved Palace of the Governors.

IMG_4876-300This fall, Oelklaus arrived on a beautiful morning and recruited nine people to place 84 pieces of black-and-white darkroom paper on the truck’s walls, using tiny magnets. The Palace was exposed for 60 minutes, then the sheets were taken into a darkroom to develop.

“As the prints were coming out of the darkroom, many of the participants enjoyed putting the large-scale puzzle together so we could see the fruit of our labor,” she said.

We’re now looking for the perfect place to display the 5×20’ image, a grand celebration of pinhole artistry.

“The outside world squeezing through this tiny aperture and being projected on the inside of my camera truck inspires me,” Oelklaus said. “Recording the world differently and over long periods of time is a main theme for my recent work.”

From a Purr to a Roar: Lowriders Speak

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Chris Martinez in his lowrider. Photo by Don Usner.

Chris Martinez in his lowrider. Photo by Don Usner.

When Lowriders, Hoppers and Hot Rods: Car Culture of Northern New Mexico opens in our second-floor Herzstein Gallery on May 1, visitors will get a chance to hear the story of the lowrider lifestyle directly from the practitioners themselves. Photo Curator Daniel Kosharek enlisted the help of 19th– and 20th-Century Southwest Curator Meredith Davidson to interview a host of lowriders from Las Vegas, Chimayó, Española, Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

Davidson, who honed her oral-history chops while working for the 9-11 Memorial Museum in New York City, then edited down the results into a 45-minute video loop that will play on iPads placed throughout the exhibit.

“I think it’s important that the lowriders tell their own stories,” Kosharek said. “If I were to go to an exhibit like this somewhere, I would want to get inside the culture, not have the museum put a level of interpretation onto it.”

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The Generosity of Friends

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Artist Gustave Baumann created this autumn-toned color wheel in 1930.

Artist Gustave Baumann created this autumn-toned color wheel in 1930.

Not all of Santa’s presents end up underneath someone’s Christmas tree. Quite a few of them landed in our collections.

Generous donors surprised and delighted us with some remarkable year-end gifts. We’re still sorting through the record-keeping details, but here’s a peek at a few donations that will help us better tell the story of New Mexico.

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Lowriders, Hoppers, and Hot Rods: Car Culture of Northern New Mexico

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1963 Chevrolet Impala, Owner Lee Cordova of Alcalde, NM, 1998. Jack Parsons, photographer. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives HP.2007.11.

1963 Chevrolet Impala, Owner Lee Cordova of Alcalde, NM, 1998. Jack Parsons, photographer. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives HP.2007.11.

¡Orale! Take a ride into the creative reimaginings of American steel as captured in photographs, hubcaps, hood ornaments, car show banners and, yes, actual cars. Lowriders, Hoppers, and Hot Rods: Car Culture of Northern New Mexico, opening May 1 (through March 5, 2017) focuses on mobile works of art and their makers—home-grown Nuevomexicanos who customize, detail, paint and upholster these favorite symbols of Hispanic culture.

Photo Curator Daniel Kosharek has pulled together an extensive collection of images by Don Usner, Annie Sahlin, Jack Parsons, Sam Adams, Norman Mauskopf, Dottie Lopez, Gabriela Campos, Meridel Rubinstein and others. In addition, visitors will see a chromed and touchable engine, miniature-scale model-car collections, trophies, memorabilia and other ephemera. The museum lobby will host a rotating selection of cherry examples.

And the thrill ride doesn’t stop there.

On May 20, the New Mexico Museum of Art will unveil an exhibit curated by Katherine Ware showing photographs and art inspired by car culture. Also in May, the Museum of New Mexico Press will release a companion book featuring essays by Ware and Usner.

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From Child’s Play to Honored Photographer

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Rodeo, San Juan Pueblo, by Sam Adams, 1996-2005. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Photo Legacy Project.

Rodeo, San Juan Pueblo, by Sam Adams, 1996-2005. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Photo Legacy Project.

An ad aimed at kids may well have changed Sam Adams life. “When I was a little boy, we used to read comic books,” he said, “and at the back were a series of advertisements for all sorts of weird things, like whoopee cushions, magic kits, things that kids would enjoy getting their hands on. And one of those was for a Candid camera, which cost three or four dollars at that time.”

Adams bit and began snapping pics at age 9. Today, he’s a retired motion-picture and television literary agent who moved to Santa Fe in 1989 and turned his attention full-time to photography.

“In the beginning it wasn’t really about the photography, it was more about the equipment, and then it became more about the subjects as time went on.”

In 2005, he won the New Mexico Council on Photography’s Eliot Porter Award. His work has been exhibited at regional museums and, most recently, took over the Meem Community Room, where we’ll host a small reception for Photography of Sam Adams, from 5–7 pm on Friday, August 7.

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Photo Archives Obtains Rare Photo of New Mexico Frontiersmen

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4-72-PA_CarteDeVisite_Wooten-StVrain-ValdezThe Palace of the Governors Photo Archives has acquired a rare carte de visite depicting Ceran St. Vrain, Dick Wootton and José Maria Valdez. Photo Curator Daniel Kosharek obtained the ca. 1865 image from Cliff Mills, a photographer, collector and dealer who has sold his own and historical images on the Santa Fe Plaza for 20 years.

“I come from an old Taos family,” Mills said. “I’m pretty sure Valdez was a relative. This is a picture that came down to me through the family.”

Carte de visites were an early phenomena of photography. Mounted on cardstock, they could be given to friends or guests. That ease helped create a Victorian craze—“cardomania.” This particular carte de visite represents the first original photograph that the Photo Archives has of St. Vrain, a legendary frontiersman, military leader and wheat magnate. The museum has one small original photograph of “Uncle Dick” Wootton, and none of Valdez.

“This is very early for photography in New Mexico—very early,” Kosharek said. “So very little exists from that time period. It is rare when a photograph of historical significance on New Mexico becomes available.”

Mills considered offering the photo to a wider market, but chose the Photo Archives, he said, in part because “I like Daniel and Tomas” Jaehn, of the museum’s Fray Angélico Chávez History Library.

Brief bios on the men in the picture:

Ceran St. Vrain (1802-1870), standing in the center of the photo, was a frontier entrepreneur and close associate of Territorial Gov. Charles Bent and Kit Carson. In the 1820s, he traveled from St. Louis to Taos, becoming a trapper and trader. In the 1830s, his partnership with Bent blossomed. With Charles’ brother, William, the men built Bent’s Fort in Colorado, headquarters of a mercantile empire and an important stop for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. In 1855 he was part of the “St Vrain’s battalion” during the Indian Wars and in 1861 was a Captain and later a Lt. Colonel in the New Mexico Volunteers. St. Vrain built the first grist mill in the Taos Valley and others in Mora, Santa Fe and Peralta. He became wealthy selling flour to the troops at Fort Union and Fort Craig. He also invested in sawmills, became involved in banking projects and railroad speculation, dabbled in politics and owned a share of The Santa Fe Gazette. He was buried at the Mora Presbyterian Church. His mill still stands in the town, though in an endangered condition.

Dick Wootton (1816-1893), seated at left in the photo, was also a frontiersman, born in Virginia, who hired out to Bent and St. Vrain at Independence, Mo., in 1836. He later gained infamy for building a toll road over Raton Pass and, for 13 years, charging travelers to use it.

José Maria Valdez, seated at right, was born in La Joya (now Velarde) in 1809. He married Maria Manuela Jaramillo in Taos in 1834 and was a witness at the wedding of his wife’s sister, Maria Josefa Jaramillo, when she married Kit Carson in 1843. (Another sister, Maria Ygnacia Jaramillo, married Charles Bent). He served in the Territorial Legislature and in 1859 was one of the petitioners for the Mora Land Grant.

The Palace of the Governors Photo Archives contains an estimated 1 million items, including historic photographic prints, cased photographs, glass plate negatives, film negatives, stereographs, photo postcards, panoramas, color transparencies, and lantern slides. This collection includes material of regional and national significance, dating from approximately 1850 to the present, covering subject matter that focuses on the history and people of New Mexico and the expansion of the West; anthropology, archaeology, and ethnology of Hispanic and Native American cultures; and smaller collections documenting Europe, Latin America, the Far East, Oceana, and the Middle East.

Orphans in the Archives

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With something like 1 million images in its files, boxes, drawers and stacks, the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives has a tough time keeping up with knowing what’s what. Often, we rely on volunteers to help us identify who’s who, which mountain is which or whose hand opened the shutter in photos that arrive with little documentation. Sometimes, our Facebook fans help out.

Lacking such knowledge, the images are known are “orphans.” Tonight, the Matthews Gallery on Canyon Road opens a new exhibit, Familiar Strangers: Vernacular Photography (through May 23), dedicated to celebrating unknown photographers whose works are as haunting as those from “celebrity” shooters.

“Provenance is so important when it comes to our historic work, but brilliant art doesn’t have to have a famous name on it,” says gallery owner Lawrence Matthews. “Familiar Strangers is a tribute to amateur artists who never got—or perhaps even sought—the recognition they deserved.”

In advance of the opening, the gallery interviewed Hannah Abelbeck, the Photo Archives’ digitization specialist. Part of her job involves the hunt and discovery of unknown talents. Here’s a little excerpt:

We have a set of collections that exist in this limbo land between the old cataloguing system and the new cataloguing system. We might know something about them, or they might just be a box of photographs sitting on a shelf. This box says “Forrest Fenn“, so he probably donated them. Some have a photographer’s name on the back and some don’t. The stack of files is catalogued by location or subject— “New Mexico Towns” or “Portraits”.

There’s more; it’s a great interview. Give it a read here.

Learn more about the exhibit here.