Patrocino Barela emerged in 1936 as one of America's important artists when he was featured in a show of Federal Arts Project artists in New York's Museum of Modern Art. He was the first Mexican-American artist to receive such a high degree of recognition. His carvings in native juniper wood depict deep psychological and mystical insights into the human condition.

Barela's art shows a close parallel to modernism in its expressionistic forms although in contrast to modernism he did not set out to dehumanize art or to make it ugly. His most powerful achievement was to express the deepest levels of the human condition. Barela expressed the spiritual through the sensual, creating a sense of timelessness in an intense artistic effort that is entirely modern.

Edward Gonzales is a well-known artist and native son of New Mexico who has recently scored a major popular success with his illustrations for Rudolfo Anaya's book The Farolitos of Christmas (Hyperion, 1995). For a number of years, he has been an organizer of the annual Contemporary Hispanic Market, one of Santa Fe's most popular events. His paintings have been shown at the Harwood Museum and the Millicent Rogers Museum, both in Taos, The Governor's Gallery in Santa Fe, Site Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Council for the Arts, Museum of New Mexico, the Albuquerque Museum, and the Gene Autrey Museum in Los Angeles, as well as many other venues.

David L. Witt is the author of an earlier book with Red Crane on the Taos arts scene, Taos Moderns, Art of the New. David has been curator at the Harwood Museum of the University of New Mexico for over sixteen years. He is founder of a national professional organization, the Southwest Art History Council.