Tony Price
Soon after Tony Price (1937-2000) arrived in New Mexico in the late 1960s, he discovered the legendary Zia Salvage Yard, which sold to the public the minacious fragments of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons programs. Price repurposed these materials to create the prophetic and visionary sculpture he called Atomic Art. He summed up his alchemistic artistry this way: “It’s a little bit like sympathetic magic and how you would take an object and endow it with another type of creative energy from the purpose it was originally meant for. To take something that was really negative and build it into something positive.” Following his death, a group of his allies and patrons formed the FRIENDS OF TONY PRICE, Inc. to provide stewardship for his consequential body of work and ensure that the exigent message embedded in his oeuvre remains available to future generations. The Friends have facilitated solo exhibitions, publications, and public programs at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe in 2004, the United Nations Headquarters in New York City in 2005, and Phil Space in Santa Fe in 2019-2023.
Photography by Elliott McDonald
Photography by Elliott McDonald
Mrs. Ferguson is a long time supporter of Tony Price's work since the 1960's. At the Gathering of Remembrance event, commemorating 25 years since Tony’s passing, she donated the early piece “EnlighTENment” to the collection, and played a role in the effort to donate “Atomic Needle” to the City of Albuquerque Museum.
