Southwest Landscapes
Browse the Southwest’s iconic mesas, skies, and vistas and consider different interpretations.
Browse the Southwest’s iconic mesas, skies, and vistas and consider different interpretations.
The distinctive landscape of the American Southwest has long inspired Western American artists. For many, its striking geography, vast skies, earthen palette, and pastel lighting beguiled and enchanted. The landscape was a principal subject for several artists whose works are part of the Gallup New Deal art collection. Some were aligned with the conservative Taos Society of Artists, taking a traditional approach to representing views of canyons, mesas, and rock formations. Others identified with the modernist movement beginning to take root in Santa Fe and highlighted the landscape’s unique features through the exaggeration or abstraction of colors and forms.
As you explore the landscape paintings of Gallup’s New Deal art collection:
To learn more about the history of Western American art, visit “The Views on the Southwest” Special Exhibit.
To dig further into artists’ professional backgrounds prior to the New Deal, visit the “Professional Backgrounds” page.
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Gallup and McKinley County are situated on the ancestral and current homelands of the Diné and Ashiwi peoples.
Gallup’s New Deal art collection consists of over 120 objects created, purchased, or donated from 1933 to 1942 through New Deal federal art programs administered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support artists during the Great Depression.
The Gallup New Deal Art Virtual Museum features three types of exhibits, combining traditional and non-traditional approaches to illuminate academic, creative, and individual understandings.
Gallup’s New Deal art collection includes works by a demographically, professionally, and stylistically diverse group of named and unnamed artists.
Image Use Notice: Images of Gallup’s New Deal artworks are available to be used for educational purposes only. Non-collection images are subject to specific restrictions and identified by a © icon. Hover over the icon for copyright info. Read more
