Adair Margo started the gallery in 1985 in a turn-of-the-century building that at one time housed a short-lived art club on its roof in the 1920s. The club was called the Chacmool Society and was started by a teenaged Tom Lea, an El Pasoan who went on to paint murals, document World War II, illustrate books, write best-selling novels, and paint pictures of the great Southwest. Adair Margo Gallery has been [Tom Lea's] exclusive representative since 1993.
Since the beginning, the gallery has exhibited the finest regional, national, and international art. Although many artists express the character of a unique border region, others have hailed from over a dozen U.S. states as well as from Europe, Asia and Mexico.
