Just 3 miles from the Plaza is the beautiful Museum Hill with some wonderful museums.Stop by the Museum Café for a light lunch, and don’t forget to walk the labyrinth in the courtyard.Say something when you are in the middle of the labyrinth, and hear your words come back to you.
The Museum opened to the public in 1953 and has gained national and international recognition as the home to the world’s largest collection of folk art. The collection of more than 135,000 artifacts forms the basis for exhibitions in four distinct wings: Bartlett, Girard, Hispanic Heritage, and Neutrogena.
The Girard Wing’s popular permanent exhibition, Multiple Visions: A Common Bond», showcases folk art, popular art, toys and textiles from more than 100 nations. The late Alexander Girard, who contributed his immense collection to the museum, designed this unorthodox and delightful exhibition, which opened in 1982.
The Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, one of four museums in the Museum of New Mexico system, is a premier repository of Native art and material culture and tells the stories of the people of the Southwest from pre-history through contemporary art. The museum serves a diverse, multicultural audience through changing exhibitions, public lectures, field trips, artist residencies, and other educational programs.
More than 65,000 visitors come to the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture each year, of which 30% hail from New Mexico, 50% from other states, and 20% from foreign countries. It is MIAC's mission to provide cross-cultural education to the many visitors to Santa Fe who take part in our programs and to New Mexican residents throughout the state. It is especially important that MIAC serve the Indian communities in our state and throughout the Southwest whose contemporary and ancestral cultures are represented in the museum's collections.
The Spanish Colonial Arts Society was founded in Santa Fe in 1925 by writer Mary Austin and artist/writer Frank G. Applegate. Its purpose was to preserve and perpetuate the Hispano art forms that have been produced in New Mexico and southern Colorado since the region was colonized by Spain in 1598.
More than seventy-five years later, its mission has been accomplished and expanded. Through the preservation and exhibition of its Spanish Colonial art collections at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, sponsorship of the semi-annual "Spanish Market" exhibitions and a range of outreach programs, the Society is now a leader in the public education of traditional Spanish Colonial art and culture.
The WheelwrightMuseum of the American Indian hosts changing exhibitions of contemporary and historic Native American art with an emphasis on the Southwest. Main gallery exhibitions change twice a year. Smaller galleries feature one-person shows by Native American artists and photographers, or items relating to the main gallery exhibition.
The museum and the Case Trading Post museum shop sponsor talks, seminars, meet-the-artist receptions, and many other events. A private, not-for-profit institution, the WheelwrightMuseum does not charge an admission fee, and most of its events are free.
