New Mexico Museum of Art
Official State of New Mexico Guitar will join collection at the New Mexico Museum of Art


Photo - Blair Clark

SANTA FE —The official State of New Mexico guitar, the “New Mexico Sunrise,” will join the collection of the state-run New Mexico Museum of Art.

The New Mexico Sunrise was created by Pimentel & Sons Guitar Makers of Albuquerque. The New Mexico Museum of Art Collection Committee voted unanimously on November 16 to acquire the guitar into the museum’s permanent collection.

In 2009 the New Mexico Legislature passed and Governor Bill Richardson signed Senate Bill 52, sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen (D-Doña Ana), making the New Mexico Sunrise the state’s official state guitar. The steel-string acoustic guitar, made of East Indian rosewood, red Sitka spruce, Honduras mahogany, and ebony, features five Zia emblems, designed with the permission of the Zia nation, inlaid with coral, mother of pearl, and ebony, and adorned with the New Mexico sun, a Navajo star, a bear claw, a roadrunner, an outline of the state of New Mexico and an American flag. The New Mexico Sunrise, conceptualized by Rick Pimentel, was designed by the Pimentels as the first in a series of custom-built guitars paying homage to the culture and symbolism of the state.

“The Pimentels represent a rich tradition in our state, celebrating both music making and fine craftsmanship,” said Museum of Art Director Mary Kershaw. “It is an honor for our museum to safeguard and showcase this important work of art from the Pimentel family.”

Pimentel and Sons was established in 1951 in El Paso, Texas by Lorenzo Pimentel. His sons Rick, Robert, Victor and Agustin - all master craftsmen - have carried on the tradition here in Albuquerque, and the company has received national and international acclaim. Awards received by the Pimentel family for their handcrafted guitars include a 1994 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, Acoustic Guitar’s Players’ Choice Award, and the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce’s Innovative Albuquerque Award. They also were the first recipients of Team Kirtland’s Hispanic Heritage Month Distinguished Honor Award, have represented New Mexico at the Smithsonian Institute’s Annual Festival of American Folklife, and are now represented at the National Music Museum at the University of South Dakota.

Joseph Traugott, the museum’s curator of 20th-century art, noted that the state guitar “struck a responsive chord with the museum staff” and that the instrument will be “a sound addition to the collection.” He also commented that the museum “hoped to have musicians regularly play the guitar in the museum’s St. Francis Auditorium.”

The New Mexico Museum of Art is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs.