Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts

The Coe Center, founded by former museum curator, Director, and collector extraordinaire, Ralph T. Coe (1929-2010), is dedicated to increasing public awareness, education, and appreciation of indigenous arts, emphasizing hands-on experience and learning through actively engaging art. The Coe Center is the legacy of Ralph T. Coe, known as Ted to his family and friends. This search for knowledge and his quest to understand the human condition is evident in the varied collections he left behind and in his creation of the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, a private operating 501(c)3 located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Coe’s unusual eclectic collection of over 2,500 objects represents worldwide indigenous cultures, with its core encompassing the span of historic to contemporary North American Native works. He collected not only art objects, but also immersed himself in the culture that produced them. He was not one to theorize, but rather chose to expound on the beauty and singularity of art, as well as on the ceremonies he witnessed. As one Native-American artist remembered, Ted was “accommodating; he was easy to be with, laughed and just went with the flow without too much fanfare. He was humble.”