Saving the Santos

The Regis University Collection of New Mexico and Colorado Santos is more than an archive of sacred art – it is a living cultural treasure. Its story begins with Father Thomas J. Steele, S.J. (1933–2010), a beloved Regis professor whose lifelong passion for the religious folk art of the Southwest began with a single santo discovered in a second‑hand shop in Albuquerque in 1966. That modest purchase sparked a decades-long journey of collecting, scholarship, and devotion that ultimately shaped one of the nation’s most significant teaching collections of santos.

Santos – whether retablos (paintings on wood) or bultos (carved sculptures) – reflect the distinctive artistic traditions that flourished across northern New Mexico and southern Colorado in the 18th and 19th centuries. Crafted from local woods such as pine and cottonwood, and painted with pigments handmade from natural materials, they embody the creativity, faith, and resilience of the region’s communities. Each santo carries its own story and purpose, and each one stands as a testament to devotion, heritage, and the everyday spirituality of the Southwest.

Today, the Regis University Santo Collection includes more than 1,000 visual works, from delicate pieces less than an inch long to towering six‑foot carvings. It is the second-largest teaching collection of santos in the United States, encompassing nearly every form of Southwest devotional art: bultos, retablos, prints, drawings, tinwork, woodwork, ceramics, textiles, and more.

A dedicated gallery in the Regis Library showcases over 100 santos at a time, while hundreds more are preserved in the climate‑controlled archives. Students and faculty from a wide range of fields regularly use the collection for hands‑on learning, research, and cultural study. Student interns gain invaluable professional experience as they help photograph, catalog, and care for these extraordinary objects.

It is especially meaningful that this collection lives at Regis, a Hispanic Serving Institution where more than half of our students identify as Hispanic, Latino, or Chicano. The santos are not only works of art – they are part of the ancestral narrative of many of our students and surrounding communities.

Preserving this cherished collection requires specialized care: archival boxes and mounts, safe storage materials, and professional conservation for fragile or damaged pieces. Funding for these essentials is increasingly difficult to secure. We are seeking funding to purchase preservation and exhibition supplies and to hire a professional conservator to repair santos most urgently in need of attention.

At the same time, the collection is opening new frontiers in innovative research. Regis is partnering with the University of Colorado Boulder to apply cutting‑edge technologies including pigment analysis, UV spectroscopy, and artificial intelligence to deepen our understanding of the santos and the artists who made them. These methods help clarify attribution, reveal erased or overlooked Indigenous artists, and create enhanced tools for search and discovery that expand access for students, scholars, and the community. To support this transformational work, we are seeking additional funding for research that will position Regis as a national leader at the intersection of art, culture, and technology.

Your generosity helps ensure that the Santos Collection remains not just protected, but vibrant and accessible — a resource for education, cultural pride, scholarly discovery, and spiritual reflection. By supporting this work, you help honor the legacy of Fr. Steele, uplift the artistic traditions of the Southwest, and open new possibilities for students and researchers for decades to come. We invite you to join us in preserving this extraordinary cultural heritage and advancing the innovative research that will bring even more stories to light.