Moving On: David F. Setford, Director of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society and the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art

Board announces Josef B. Díaz will serve as acting director

Santa Fe, NM: The Spanish Colonial Arts Society announced today that Executive Director David F. Setford will leave at the end of February to take the reins of the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington state. Chief Curator and Associate Director Josef B. Díaz will serve as acting director. Located on Museum Hill in Santa Fe, the 91-year-old Arts Society operates the Museum of Spanish Colonial Arts, which, since 2002, has celebrated the best in historical and contemporary Spanish Colonial art and culture. It also oversees the annual Spanish Markets in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces.

Setford has led the institution for four years after a 30-year career in museums and management of fine-art expositions and fairs. As executive director of the Tacoma Art Museum, he will guide an institution that was founded in 1935 and that is currently embarking on its second expansion since it opened in its current location in 2003. With landmark collections of studio glass (including the largest retrospective museum collection of glass art by Tacoma native Dale Chihuly), studio art jewelry, Western art, Northwest art, European and American Modernism and Japanese woodblock prints, Tacoma Art Museum is a model for major regional, mid-sized art museums.

“It saddens me to leave the Spanish Colonial Arts Society and Santa Fe, but I am going to a museum and a collection that offer me an outstanding personal opportunity in so many ways,” Setford said. “I am truly thankful to the staff, board members, artists, supporters, and volunteers who have made my tenure so memorable. Together, we’ve taken enormous strides in education, collections and purchases, programs, markets, exhibitions, and improving our institution’s financial health.”

Díaz joined the Spanish Colonial Arts Society
in September 2017 after 10 years at the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors, in Santa Fe, where he curated groundbreaking exhibits focused on Spanish Colonial art and history, served as lead editor on several award-winning books, and guided preservation efforts for the Palace, a National Historic Landmark.

“I look forward to expanding the work of my predecessor, David Setford, who together with a gifted staff and a dedicated Board of Trustees have made the museum’s world-class collections accessible and the visitor experience memorable,” Díaz said. “These are ambitious times for the museum, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.”

Setford’s achievements on behalf of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society include:
Expanding the reach of Spanish Colonial artists into the southern part of the state with a Spanish Market in Las Cruces each February since 2015. That market will grow into an even larger event in 2019, demonstrating the institution’s commitment to the preservation of traditional art and economic opportunities for its artists.
Broadening the museum’s programs and exhibits, particularly with a 2015 photography exhibition Tradición, Devoción y Vida: Photographs from Mexico and New Mexico, which Setford curated, and 2017’s Mirror, Mirror: Photographs of Frida Kahlo, which tripled the museum’s expectations of visitation and income.
Stabilizing the institution’s finances by both cutting back on its investment draw and leading inventive donor campaigns which have increased donor engagement. Now, Setford said, the Society is “poised to break out.”
“We have really proved that we are ‘the little museum that could,'” he said. “The Spanish Colonial Arts Society and the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art have a very bright future.”

Joel Goldfrank, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, said, “We appreciate David’s good work and we will miss him. However, we have every confidence that Josef Díaz will continue the trajectory established for the institution over the last four years.”

The Spanish Colonial Arts Society was founded in 1926, and currently runs three major programs: the Spanish Markets in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces; educational programs in schools and the community; and the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. Its current exhibit, Time Travelers: And the Saints Go Marching On, features exemplary santos from the museum’s collections, pairing historical masterpieces with modern-day standouts.

CONTACT:
Josef Díaz, acting director, 505.982.2226, ext. 121, jdiaz@spanishcolonial.org