El Gran Poder de Dios Niche
July, 1987
37.5" x 17.62" x 15"
Devotional Objects, Tinwork, Niche of wood, watercolor and natural pigments, stamped tinwork and glass
Region: Santa Fe, New Mexico
Signed on bottom
Drawing from New Mexico’s long history of Catholic religious imagery and combining it with the 20th century craft of tin metal work, artists and the faithful express their faith and identity numerous ways. This tin and wood niche or nicho is made in part as cultural and religious affirmation. New Mexican artist Maria Romero Cash carved the wooden figures, and her husband Don Cash created the tin work.

El Gran Poder de Dios (The Great Power of God)

About the Artist
(1942)
Marie Romero Cash is a well-known award -winning folk artist and writer in Santa Fe, where she has lived most of her life. Her whimsical one-of-a-kind creations are in demand by collectors of all ages.

Primarily recognized for creating traditional New Mexican art for fifty years, in 2024 Cash presented for the first time to the public a series of acrylic paintings begun over a decade ago when a sibling was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

She is one of only five United States artists invited to participate in the 2019 International Folk Art Market and has participated in the annual Spanish Market in Santa Fe for over forty- five years.

The daughter of prominent traditional tinwork artists, the late Senaida and Emilio Romero, Marie has created large altar screens for a number of churches in the United States and in Mexico, including Stations of the Cross for the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, which have been viewed by tens of thousands of visitors.

As a writer, her early works focused on research-based books about the culture and churches of Northern New Mexico, along with a memoir about growing up in Santa Fe in the 1950s.

Later she authored a mystery series based around Santa Fe; a romantic novel about the Pueblo Revolt; a children’s book; and most recently, a second memoir, “Staying Afloat.”

Her works are in the following collections: the Museum of International Folk Art; the Gene Autry Museum of the American West; the Albuquerque Museum; the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art; the Smithsonian Institute; the Vatican; the Archdiocese of Santa Fe; the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; and many private collections.