Sangre de Cristo Arts & Conference Center -- All of the Arts for All of Southern Colorado

Visual Arts: Regional Contemporary Collection

The Contemporary Collection includes contemporary artwork but focuses on artists from Colorado and specifically Southern Colorado. The bulk of this collection is comprised of the work of Orlin Helgoe. Helgoe was a professor in the Art Department at what was then called Southern Colorado State College, later called The University of Southern Colorado, and is now Colorado State University at Pueblo.

Helgo was mesmerized by prairie symbols and concentrated his focus on painting symbols and images of the prairie and the Colorado landscape. The Arts Center has 76 of his works in our collection. Other artists of note include: Paul Pletka, Kim English, Fritz Scholder, Wolfgang Pogzeba, John Mendoza, Richard Hansen, Glenda Goodacre, Carolyn Hoyle and Franz von Stuck. This collection has steadily grown over the past 10 years.