New New Mexico: Contemporary Art from New Mexico

Artists: Larry Bell, Allan Graham, Luis Jimenez, Jr., Carl Johansen, Georgia O’Keeffe, Susan Rowland, Paul Sarkisian, Richard Thompson, John Wenger

This Scottish Arts Council exhibition was the first occasion on which a selection of contemporary art from New Mexico was seen in Europe. It was initiated by Scottish sculptor Gerald Laing, who had worked in New Mexico.

The nine selected artists do not represent a group or movement, but, as Robert Breen (then Exhibitions Officer for the Scottish Arts Council) wrote in the exhibition catalogue in 1980, the artists ‘seem to share a feeling for history without the ties of tradition, recognising the overwhelming sense of personal freedom engendered by the extraordinary landscape and fertile mix of Anglo, Indian and Spanish cultures’ found in New Mexico.

The exhibition catalogue is available at the National Library of Scotland.

Ruth Bretherick
Research and Public Engagement Curator
August 2025

Photographer: Antonia Reeve