Agnes Sims (1910-1990)

Agnes Sims spent most of her adult life living in New Mexico. She was a noted artist of the area for her abstract paintings in petroglyph style. Perhaps her inspiration derived from her collaboration with Anthropologist Bertha Dutton in analyzing the kiva murals excavated at Kuana, a Pueblo Ruin, now preserved as Coronado State Monument just outside Albuquerque, NM.

Excavation of the ruins, on the west bank of the Rio Grande, 15 miles north of Albuquerque and 5 miles north of Sandia Pueblo, was begun in 1934 at the instigation of Edward Lee Hewett and continued to 1938. The pueblo is believed to have been occupied from 1300 to 1600.

What was discovered was layer upon layer of painted mural scenes around the walls of a rectangular kiva. There were 15 layers recovered painstakingly by peeling one layer at a time from the walls. Bertha Dutton was selected to study and analyze the scenes with the assistance of Agnes Sims and Hulda Hobbs.

It is quite likely that this early exposure to the petroglyph paintings at Kuana influenced Sim.

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