New Deal art programs were broadly interested in cultivating a unique American artistic identity and in establishing the United States as an arts and cultural center with its own rich legacy and heritage separate from that of Europe. Toward that end, New Mexico’s Federal Art Project (FAP) heavily promoted Spanish Colonial art forms specific to what is now the Southwestern United States. Tinwork was developed by Spanish colonists in what is now New Mexico in the 1700s and became widely practiced after the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821 and the corresponding increase in trade. The New Mexico FAP picked up the mantle of the tradition by directing the state’s workshop programs to train artists in the craft and to produce objects such as this light fixture, frames, and other decorative arts for newly constructed buildings.
