Hope Curtis Photo Collection
by Giulia Caporuscio, HSFF Research Historian
Historic Santa Fe Foundation was saddened when Hope A. Curtis passed away in early 2024. Curtis was a volunteer for the foundation for over 35 years. In late 2024 Curtis’ estate reached out to the Foundation to donate many of her photographs. The collection included 75 binders documenting various preservation projects the Foundation was involved in. The collection is invaluable and is used almost every day at the Foundation. We are excited to have and appreciate this collection to offer as a resource for researchers and the public.
Hope Anthony Curtis was born in 1933 in Providence, Rhode Island. She graduated from Chatham Hall School in Virginia. After high school she moved to New York City to study painting at The Art Student’s League. During her time in New York she worked on photography with Bernice Abbott. All while working at the New York Public Library.
In 1956, she moved to Santa Fe, with several friends, to establish the Santa Fe Summer Theater. After the theater closed, she stayed in Santa Fe. Curtis studied painting under Dean Holt, who conducted classes on Canyon Road in the Borrego House (now Geronimo).
In the late 1950s Curtis met Donna Quasthoff, who was working at Claude’s Bar. Quasthoff was an architect, sculptor, and preservationist. A visit to Cathedral Park will give one an idea of her sculptural work that includes the fourteen-foot bronze sculpture in the middle of the park, the bronze panels of the doors of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis de Assisi, and the now removed statue of Don Diego de Vargas that stood in Cathedral Place. Curtis and Quasthoff’s relationship would last until Quasthoff passed away in 2021.
In a Museum of New Mexico 1973 photography competition entitled “The Photo Document- Historian Architecture in New Mexico” judged by Laura Gilpin, Douglas George, and George C Pearl Hope, Curtis was awarded “Best Documentary for a Series of Buildings”. In 1975 Donna E. Quasthoff and Hope A. Curtis compiled the archival collection “Obsolete hospitals and clinics photograph collection from the University of New Mexico Health Historical Collection,” photos of medical facilities in New Mexico that are no longer used as such from over 30 different cities around the state. The collection is based off Quasthoff’s 1975 dissertation The Obsolete Hospital: Raze or Recycle?
The 1970s also saw the couple beginning of their involvement in Historic Santa Fe Foundation. Quasthoff served on the board from 1972 to 1977. Curtis was awarded with “Volunteer of the Year” for the first time in the mid 1970s, and many times after that. Curits would help the Foundation by providing photographic documentation for historic buildings around Santa Fe. When the Foundation was working on preserving a building, Curits would take before, during, and after photos, showing up daily to document the work. Curtis’s photographs are still the most referenced photo collection in daily work at the Foundation.
When reading about Hope Curtis my favorite story of her is from Charles Coffman in 2011: “A couple of years after the Rivera project, there was a tenant change at the Vigil House, which the Foundation also owns. The house was empty throughout most of the winter of 2008. The previous tenants had been occasionally leaving food out for the neighborhood stray cats. When Hope found that the cats no longer had a benefactor, in her usual generous manner, she took over the role. So every day, regardless of weather, Hope would drive by the Vigil House and leave food for the cats. But it wasn’t only food-she also provided cat beds & toys for some of them. I don’t think anybody ever knew for sure how many cats there actually were but essentially, the local cats had moved into the Ritz Carlton!”
Historic Santa Fe Foundation was a recipient of an estate gift from the Hope Curtis Charitable Remainder Trust in 2025. We are honored to list Ms. Curtis as a member of our legacy giving society, HSFF’s SIEMPRE SOCIETY.
