A Digital Presentation of Cormac O'Malley's Salon El Zaguan Salon El Zaguán

Historic Santa Fe Foundation hosts a monthly speaker as part of our Salon El Zaguán series. This lecture series is a member benefit and open to the public with admission. Space is usually limited for each event in the sala of our offices and home in HSFF's El Zaguán. Note that the schedule is subject to change for the upcoming months so keep an eye on our email announcements. For more information on the Salon El Zaguán series, visit our website.

This audio was recorded at Historic Santa Fe Foundation located at 545 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM as part of their monthly Salon El Zaguán talk series. O'Malley spoke on January 21, 2020 about the artists Dorothy Stewart and his father and poet Ernie O’Malley who lived in Santa Fe in the early to mid-1900s.

Dorothy Stewart, the artist, arrived in Santa Fe in the mid-1920s. Ernie O’Malley, the poet and author, arrived in Santa Fe from Taos in early 1930. Stewart and O'Malley met in the literary and artistic circles in Santa Fe and became friends. He lectured there on Irish literature and history.

In late 1930 when Stewart wanted to return to Mexico to continue her series of Mexican print works, she asked O’Malley to escort her as the driver of her car. He was anxious to see what was happening in Mexico in terms of how indigenous art and influences were being incorporated into Post-Mexican Revolution art. Another New York artist, Theodora Goddard, then living in Santa Fe joined the troop as she was also particularly interested in the political side of the revolution and its political art. When they returned to Santa Fe after eight months of travel in Mexico, Stewart asked O’Malley to help her publish a book of her prints covering New Mexico and old Mexico with his writing and her prints. For various reasons the book never got published but O'Malley retained the prints which he had received from Stewart and hung some of them in his homes in Ireland where he returned in 1935.

O'Malley and Stewart had a deep and abiding interest in folklore and folkways in New Mexico and Mexico and elsewhere. Her art and his poems reflect on the life and attitudes in rural New Mexico of the time, and capture the spirit of those days, and indeed speak to us today.

The entire presentation is available on YouTube as a four-part series. Find the links to all below or find and subscribe to our channel YouTube.

View Part 1 here https://youtu.be/Ee_mNiPgCUw
View Part 2 here https://youtu.be/xNffUUFBsUY
View Part 3 here https://youtu.be/yUbamTPvZto
View Part 4 here https://youtu.be/sRsNxNJSdy8