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From 1963 to 1973, an important art collection was formed when Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Babey, Pamela Babey, Dr. Reginald Fisher, Dr. and Mrs. Ezra K. Neidich, Mr. C. Andrew Sutherland, Mr. Fran E. Tolland, Ms. Helen McClure and Mr. Victor E. Clarence donated retablos and related materials to the New Mexico State University. The word retablo, refers to sacred images painted on sheets of tin-coated iron which depict Jesus, the Virgin Mary, saints and religious figures. This artform flourished during the nineteenth-century Mexico. The University Collection of over 1,700 art works during the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries Mexico is now the largest collection of tin retablos and related materials held by any U.S. museum.

Precedents for these retablos can be traced to paintings on wood, copper, and canvas from European and Mexican artists between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The word retablo also refers to baroque altars found in European and Mexican churches during this time period. Also affecting this distinctly Mexican devotion are pre-Columbian precedents which were combined with European influences to produce this unique, hybrid art form.

Retablos were made by a variety of artists in the Bahío area of central Mexico, especially around the mining regions of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Guadalajara, and Michoacán. Some retablos were painted by academically-trained artists but, the majority were made by self-taught artists. Workshops of retablo artists mass produced these paintings, which were sold in markets and shops near pilgrimage sites.

The retablo tradition was threatened at the end of the nineteenth century, when inexpensive chromolithographs (color prints ) of saints and holy images became readily available. The Mexican artists could not produce devotional paintings at such a low cost, and were subsequently driven out-of-business. Nevertheless, the retablo tradition has continued through modern printing methods in the form of calendars, holy cards, posters, and religious trinkets sold in markets near churches and shrines throughout Mexico and in the United States.