ADAIR MARGO

Adair Margo is Chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001. PCAH, comprised of twenty-four private members and the heads of federal cultural agencies - including the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Institute of Museum and Library Services; the State Department; and the Library of Congress - incorporates the arts and the humanities into White House objectives.  Margo is a member of the United States National Commission for UNESCO, appointed by Secretary of State Colin Powell, and she traveled with First Lady Laura Bush to Paris in 2003 for the United States reentry into UNESCO.   She has traveled extensively in Latin America as a cultural representative.  Adair Margo is an honorary member of the US-Mexico Fund for Culture and she signed a Joint Communique for Cultural Cooperation between the United States and Mexico with Sari Bermudez, President of Conaculta (National Council for Culture and the Arts).  She attended the Organization of American States Second Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Culture and Highest Appropriate Authorities in Mexico City and traveled to Uruguay at the invitation of U.S. Ambassador Martin Silverstein, where she signed a Joint Communique for Cultural Cooperation with Minister of Education and Culture Leonardo Guzman. In June 2007 she led the highest level U.S. cultural delegation ever to visit the People’s Republic of China.  Comprised of 35 members, the delegation was hosted by the Chinese Cultural Minister, Sun Jiazheng.   On November 19, 2007, Adair received the highest award the Mexican government bestows on non-Mexican civilians, the Aguila Azteca, from Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C.  First Lady Laura Bush attended.

Adair Margo founded Adair Margo Gallery in 1985 and, since that time, has exhibited over 400 individual artists from a dozen countries.  The Gallery has mounted more than 200 exhibitions of drawing, painting, sculpture, photography and installation, and has hosted as many receptions for the public.  By working with not-for-profits and educational institutions, the Gallery has drawn well known collectors to the border, including Frederick Weisman from Los Angeles who purchased Luis Jimenez’s sculpture, End of the Trail with Electric Sunset, and gave it to the University of Texas at El Paso Library.  Other partnerships resulted in regional celebrations of artists as diverse as Jose Cisneros, James Drake, Donald Judd, Tom Lea and John Houser, with simultaneous exhibitions of their work at locations all over town.  Adair Margo Gallery has also placed the work of regional artists in important collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Dallas Museum of Art; the National Museum of Women in the Arts;  the Oval Office of the White House; and U.S. Embassies worldwide.

Adair Margo is the author of two books, one on renown painter, writer, and illustrator, Tom Lea, and another on Jose Cisneros, famed illustrator of the borderlands.  She has taught art history at New Mexico State University and the University of Texas at El Paso.

She has served on many boards, including the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board; the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools/Commission on Colleges Executive Committee; Mid-America Arts Alliance; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum Advisory Council.

Adair has been married to Dee Margo for 31 years and has two sons.  She earned her B.A. in Art History from Vanderbilt University, studied Renaissance Art and Italian in Florence, Italy with Syracuse University, and earned her M.A. in Art History from New Mexico State University.

Please contact us for more information about Adair Margo Gallery.