The mural Allegory, by Lloyd Moylan, is part of Gallup’s New Deal Art Collection. Photo courtesy gallupARTS
As a New Deal Federal Art Center, Gallup, New Mexico is home to over 150 New Deal art objects ranging from paintings and murals to furniture and architecture. Currently, many of the artworks are uncatalogued and are housed in five separate venues around the city. They are largely inaccessible to the public and disjointed as a collection. With NEH support, gallupARTS, the region’s arts council, has researched and catalogued the collection, and developed a prototype for a centralized website that archives and showcases it.
“A lot of important issues we think about today are represented in the collection—issues of representation, inclusion, whose history gets told. Art creates a space to have a dialogue.”
–Rose Eason, project director
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The New Deal Art Collection has been an underused cultural resource for Gallup and its community. By collecting and storing images of the collection’s objects in a single digital location, gallupARTS is making it possible for the community to use this invaluable resource. In addition to building up the digital infrastructure necessary to host such a website, the NEH grants funded research to help better interpret the collection. The organization consulted art historians and museum professionals from around the region to design virtual exhibitions around different themes. “A lot of important issues we think about today are represented in the collection—issues of representation, inclusion, whose history gets told,” said Rose Eason, the project director. “Art creates a space to have a dialogue.” The NEH grant has also contributed to the local arts economy by allowing gallupARTS to commission works from local artists in response to pieces in the collection.
The research that went into public presentations of items in the collection, such as this one, was made possible through NEH funding.
Though the website is not yet live, the effects of the grants are already being felt. “The collection is now more protected than it’s ever been,” says Eason, “and the community is more invested in it.” Using grant-funded research, the project’s organizers have been able to educate elected officials on the importance of the collection and to plant the seed of creating an art museum in Gallup to house it. In addition to funds, the NEH grants have given the project an important sense of validation that makes such a prospect seem possible.
