This is the second in a seven-part series of Southwestern history murals that the Gallup public schools commissioned J. R. Willis to paint through the Public Works of Art Project between 1935 and 1936—and that still hang in the Gallup High School library.
Here, Willis portrays Spanish “explorer” Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who spent eight years between 1528 and 1536 traveling along the Gulf of Mexico coast from present-day Florida to present-day Texas as part of a group of only four survivors of the ill-fated Pánfilo de Narváez expedition (the group included Estebanico, an enslaved Black Moroccan, pictured at far left). The group survived with help from the Native American peoples they encountered.
In his mural series, Willis relates Southwest history from a Eurocentric perspective. Despite his haggard appearance, Cabeza de Vaca is a commanding presence in Willis’s mural. His figure forms the apex of a triangular composition and is almost spotlit by the setting sun as he takes a confident, purposeful step forward.
