The UNM Art Museum, as a dynamic part of the state’s flagship institution of higher learning, is first and foremost a teaching museum. The museum was founded in 1963 and its collections have grown exponentially over the years reflecting the university’s unique location, the museum’s status as a resource, and the interests of its supporters.
The Museum’s collection includes painting, photography, prints, and sculpture with particular strengths in American prints and works by the Transcendental Painting Group. It also houses the estate collection of Raymond Jonson and Clinton Adams and is the archive for the Tamarind Lithography Workshop (1960-1970) and the Tamarind Institute (1970-present). Begun by Van Deren Coke and enhanced by Beaumont Newhall, the vast works on paper collection includes over 10,000 photographs and early cased objects, more than 10,000 prints, which date from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) to the present day, and nearly 1,500 drawings.
