The Stories Behind the Santos A Tesoros de Devoción symposium

Historians, artists and scholars will offer their thoughts on various aspects of the santero’s craft May 14-16 at a special symposium, “New Mexico’s Devotional Art: An Amalgam of Ethnicity, Artistic and Cultural Traditions.” The lectures are free with museum admission; see the schedule of speakers below.

The symposium builds on Tesoros de Devoción, a long-term exhibit of bultos, retablos, and animal-skin paintings from the late 1700s to 1900 on display at the Palace of the Governors. (For more on the exhibit, go to www.nmhistorymuseum.org/tesoros/.) 

As the exhibit reveals, the santero’s art was founded on a broad tradition of Christian imagery, but molded into a unique regional vernacular in the then-isolated Spanish colonies of New Mexico. Today, the santos they created hold many stories – about small bands of settlers surviving in a distant land while developing a culture that has survived hundreds of years in mountain villages and acequia communities. About the colonial exploits of Europe and the cultures that both clashed and blended. About the flags that have flown over this land (Spain, Mexico and the United States) and how those political changes affected families and communities.

At heart, santos were a way to feel the divine presence through prayer and meditation and for asking a saint’s intercession. In a broader context, they serve as windows into a culture and history as remote to us today as they were from Spain and Mexico City in the 18th and 19th centuries.

All of the lectures take place in the History Museum Auditorium. The schedule:

Friday, May 14

5:30-6:30 pm: Dr. Ross Frank, professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego: Santos y Santa Fé: New Mexico’s Colonial Creations

6:45-7:45 pm: Felipe R. Mirabal, scholar:  Crossing Old Frontiers and Creating New Pathways: The Art and Life of don Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, 1713-1785 

Saturday, May 15

10:30-11:30 am: Robin Farwell Gavin, curator, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Santa Fe: Altar Screens of New Mexico

1:30-2:30 pm: Dr. Aaron Fry, professor, Native American Art, University of New Mexico: The Laguna Santero

3-4 pm: Dr. Charles Carrillo, santero and scholar: It All Started in Santa Fe: The Santero Tradition, 1750-1850

Sunday, May 16

10:30-11:30 am: Dr. William Wroth, scholar and former curator of the Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center: 19th-Century New Mexican Santos: Iconographical and Ceremonial Sources in Spain and Mexico

12-1 pm: Victor Goler, santero and scholar: The History of New Mexico Carvers

Sponsors of the symposium are the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, New Mexico Humanities Council, Dr. Malcolm Purdy, and Heritage Hotels and Resorts.