** 2024 Commencement Updates **

** 2024 Commencement Updates **

Photographs of New Deal murals on display at Highlands

LAS VEGAS, NM – A photographic journey of New Deal-era murals across New Mexico will be on display in Highlands’ Kennedy Alumni Hall Dec. 1 – Feb. 28.

The photographs include both current reproductions of murals across New Mexico as well as black and white photographs taken during the Great Depression.

“I wanted examples of works that represented the life and culture of New Mexico, said Renée Buchanan,” Highlands’ art curator and archivist. “The exhibition will tie in with the New Deal murals here at Highlands in Ilfeld Auditorium and Rodgers Hall. It will also include silkscreen works by Louie Ewing from the Highlands art collection.”

Ewing moved to Santa Fe in the mid 1930s and set up a silkscreen shop where he created fifteen silkscreens of Navajo blankets. Each silkscreen was printed 200 times and sent to several universities, libraries and museums.

An opening reception for the New Deal exhibit will be Dec. 9 from 4-7 p.m.

The New Deal photo exhibition is presented in collaboration with the New Mexico Chapter of the National New Deal Preservation Association.

“The quality of work in the New Deal murals is phenomenal,” said Kathy Flynn, the New Mexico Chapter director. “It depicts what we looked like socially and economically.”

The New Deal program, which ran from 1933 to 1939, helped alleviate unemployment during the Great Depression and employed artists, photographers, writers and musicians.

The gallery in Kennedy Alumni Hall at 905 University Avenue is open during regular university hours Monday – Friday.