Edwina Milner
February 8, 1931- May 16, 2023
The New Mexico School for the Arts and NMSA Art Institute honors the memory of our beloved board member and friend, Edwina Milner. Among NMSA’s most generous supporters, Edwina and her late husband Charles were enthusiastic champions of an arts-focused education. Their generosity fueled NMSA’s arts programming and made our move to a state-of-the-art new campus possible. Our community is forever grateful for their ardent support.
Edwina was a painter, educator, arts patron, and advocate whose high-profile contribution to Santa Fe was as lead donor and visionary for Milner Plaza, the 32-acre renovation on Museum Hill that is home to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and Museum of International Folk Art. Milner moved to New Mexico from Texas in the early 1990s and quickly became immersed in the local arts scene. She served on the boards and commissions of numerous cultural institutions, including the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and the Institute of American Indian Arts. In addition to her work with Milner Plaza, she was a major donor to fund the Lloyd Kiva New Gallery in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in 2002. She was the founder of the New Mexico Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and a 2006 recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.
At the age of 83, she had a one-artist show on Canyon Road in Santa Fe and one at the Blue Dome Gallery in Silver City, New Mexico. She had another show in Silver City at Western New Mexico University at 87. At 91 years old, Edwina was selected as NMSA’s inaugural one-artist show on the new campus.
Thank you, Edwina. You will be deeply missed.