Constructed 1937.
The Roswell Museum and Art Center was founded in 1935 through an agreement between the City of Roswell, Works Progress Administration (WPA), Federal Art Project (FAP), Chaves County Archaeological and Historical Society, and the Roswell Friends of Art. The Museum opened in 1937, deriving its initial support from the WPA as part of a Depression era project to promote public art centers nationwide. Today, the Roswell Museum and Art Center is among a handful of these Federal Art Centers that remain in operation.
There is also a variety of art and furnishings from the New Deal era on display. Among them are: the largest public collection of works by Taos artist and WPA muralist Howard Cook; the Decorative Arts Collection, containing unique examples of hand-crafted furniture and decorative objects that were the original furnishings of the Museum when it opened in 1937, primarily made by WPA-era Hispanic craftsmen for the Federal Art Project; and the Portfolio of Spanish Colonial Design, a prized collection of woodblock prints produced by E. Boyd for the Federal Arts Project as New Mexico’s contribution to the Index of American Design. — Source: Roswell Museum website
100 W. 11th St. Roswell, NM 88201 | 575-624-6744
