Gabrielle G. Palmer is an art historian known for her research on Spanish colonial art and for leading the Camino Real Project to bring attention to the historic trail known as the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
Career edit
Palmer got her PhD in Spanish colonial art history from the University of New Mexico.
She oversaw restoration of the Santuario de Guadalupe in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Info from the “El Camino Real” article in the SNMHR).
As the director of the Camino Real Project in the late 1980s, she led efforts to increase public awareness of the historic trail known as the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (the Royal Road of the Interior). This trail was formally established by the Spanish as a “royal road” in the 16th century, although it had been used by Native Americans for centuries before the Spanish arrived. Stretching 1600 miles from Mexico City to San Juan Pueblo in northern New Mexico, it is the northernmost of the four major royal roads that linked Mexico City to its major tributaries during and after the Spanish colonial era. The Camino Real Project helped to make an archeological inventory of sites along the trail, produced a map and brochure about the trail, and published a volume of essays about the cultural and historical significance of the trail. The state of New Mexico coordinated with the project to place thirty-three markers along state highways that paralleled the trail, indicating some of the more important sites.
In addition, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the project sponsored a national traveling exhibition about the Camino Real, “El Camino Real: Un Sendero Hístorico”. Palmer wrote that she hoped these efforts would lead to the Camino Real being designated an international historic trail, a dream that was realized when in 2000 a 400-mile section of the route within the United States was proclaimed the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail within the National Historic Trail system. (Source for this info is El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro book and the Wikipedia article on this Camino Real).
Interview/video: https://themountaingeek.net/2019/01/08/gabrielle-palmer-phd-art-history/
Question about the idea for a permanent center on the Camino Real; see this article: https://www.krqe.com/news/larry-barker/middle-of-nowhere-new-mexicos-multi-million-dollar-blunder/
Selected Publications edit
Books edit
- Cambios: The Spirit of Transformation in Spanish Colonial Art.
Co-authored with Donna Pierce. Albuquerque: Santa Barabara Museum of Art in cooperation with the University of New Mexico Press, 1992.
- Sculpture in the Kingdom of Quito. Is this the published version of the PhD thesis?
- El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Co-authored with June-el Piper and LouAnn Jacobson. Santa Fe, New Mexico: State Office of the Bureau of Land Management, Cultural Resources Series #11, 1993. This is a collection of essays.
- El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Vol. 2. June-el Piper, ed.
Compiled by Gabrielle G. Palmer and Stephen L. Fosberg. Santa Fe, New Mexico: State Office of the Bureau of Land Management, Cultural Resources Series #13, 1999. This is a collection of essays.
Essays edit
- "The Religious Polychromed Wood Sculpture of Colonial Quito: Its Origins and Sources." (1973). PhD thesis. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/arth_etds/115
- ”El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.” Southern New Mexico Historical Review 6:1 ( (January 1999), 1-5. http://www.donaanacountyhistsoc.org/HistoricalReview/1999/HistoricalReview1999.pdf#page5
References edit
External links edit
El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Trail Association (CARTA): http://caminorealcarta.org/