Institute of American Indian Arts

The Institute of American Indian Arts is a college focused on Native American art, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Many IAIA graduates transition into full-time careers as self-supporting artists, while others continue their education at universities and art schools nationwide.IAIA operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building, a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum houses the 7,000+ piece National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art.HistoryThe Institute of American Indian Arts was co-founded by Lloyd Kiva New and George Boyce. It was funded by United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, in 1962. The intertribal art school was created upon the recommendation of the BIA Department of Education and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. Three factors led to the creation of IAIA: dissatisfaction with the academic program of the Santa Fe Indian School, a BIA paradigm shift towards post-graduate education, and the influence of the Southwest Indian Art Project and the Rockefeller Foundation.