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Pueblo Indian Watercolors:
Artists' Biographies
Pueblo Names
Many Pueblos have two different names. One is the name in the traditional Pueblo Indian language, the other, a name in the European tradition of given and family names. Traditional American Indian names often have specific meanings. For instance, the name Awa Tsireh means Cattail Bird. The name is treated as a phrase and is not broken into first and last names, or given and family names.
The European-style names are primarily Spanish, which were either assigned to Native Americans by the Spanish and Mexican priests and settlers who moved into the Rio Grande valley or adopted by American Indian individuals or families to ease contact with the Spanish-speaking colonists.
Biographies of Pueblo Artists
(The Pueblo Indian name is given on the left; the Spanish name on the right. The name the artist prefers to use appears in bold face.)
Awa Tsireh (1895–1955)
San Ildefonso Pueblo
Awa Tsireh, also known as Alfonso Roybal, was one of the first Pueblo painters to receive recognition by the Santa Fe art
community. After seeing several examples of Awa Tsireh's work for
sale in a souvenir shop in 1917, Alice Corbin Henderson sought out
the artist and developed a great respect for his work
and that of his peers. Awa Tsireh's success at selling his
paintings, although few were sold for more than a dollar,
encouraged other Pueblo artists to adapt their painting and design
skills to the medium of watercolor paint on paper. In the 1920s Awa
Tsireh received sponsorship from the School of American Research,
then a branch of the Museum of New Mexico, so that he could paint full time. He was given studio space in the museum along with
Fred Kabotie, a Hopi artist, and Velino Shije Herrera of the Zia community.
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Justino Herrera (born 1920)
Cochiti Pueblo
Justino Herrera began painting while at school in Santa Fe from 1937 to 1940. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and served for three years during World War II. The creation of the atomic bomb in the nearby town of Los Alamos had a lasting effect on Herrera, as is indicated by his painting That Is No Longer Our Smoke Sign. In the 1940s he wrote to a collector studying his work:
I figured a plan to do while I was in the army when I come [sic] home. I'd marry my sweetheart and have our own home on my farm, raise stock and I could keep painting, too. Well, it happened. We got married and we had a little girl. Couple months later my wife took sick…and she left me and my little baby daughter to raise. I am employed as a farmer here at St. Michael's Indian School.
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Velino Shije Herrera (born 1902)
Zia Pueblo
Another Pueblo artist described Velino Shije Herrera, also known by his Indian name of Ma Pe Wi, as the "singing artist" because as he drew, Herrera would sing songs appropriate for the ceremony he was depicting. Herrera gave permission to the state of New Mexico to adapt his design of the Zia sun symbol for use as the state logo. The red design on a yellow field can be seen on the state flag, seal, and license plates. The artist was criticized by members of the Zia community for betraying his people by giving the traditional Pueblo design to non-Indians.
With Awa Tsireh, Herrera painted under the sponsorship of the School of
American Research. In the late 1930s, Herrera taught painting at
the Albuquerque Indian School. In 1939 he was commissioned to
create a series of murals for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. He spent much of his life as a rancher
and cowboy.
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Julian (1879–1943) and
Maria Martinez (1887–1980)
San Ildefonso Pueblo
Although Julian Martinez created many paintings on paper, he is best known for his collaborations with his wife, the potter Maria
Martinez. Maria formed and polished the elegant vessels, and Julian
applied the painted decoration. Although they occasionally fashioned
vessels with colored designs, the couple gained an international
reputation for creating matte black decorations on
polished black surfaces. In part, the national popularity of their
pottery can be attributed to the ease with which the smooth,
geometric shapes matched the art deco style of the 1930s
and 1940s, or, as Maria put it: "Black goes with everything."
Julian painted the small bowl, which Maria formed, with the Avanyu, or horned serpent, that also appears in his watercolor painting of Avanyu.
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Richard Martinez (born 1904)
San Ildefonso Pueblo
Richard Martinez began to paint in 1920 and attended the Santa Fe Indian School where he took art classes with Dorothy Dunn. In 1936
he joined other artists who had attended the school and helped paint a
series of murals for the school's student dining room.
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Oqwa Pi (about 1899–1971)
San Ildefonso Pueblo
An active member of San Ildefonso's political and social life, Oqwa Pi served as both lieutenant governor and governor of the pueblo. The figures in his paintings are highly stylized, and the faces are composed of geometric designs. The artist once explained:
As I found that painting was the best among my talents, I decided to do my best to win me fame as an Indian artist.… I have raised a big healthy family for my painting brought in good income.
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Josefa Roybal (life dates unknown)
San Ildefonso Pueblo
One of the few female Pueblo painters in the first years of the movement, Josefa Roybal, the sister of Awa Tsireh, received little
attention in an artistic community dominated by male artists. Like
many Pueblo women, Josefa Roybal frequently used the Anglicized
version of her name, Josephine, which would have been more familiar than her Indian name to non-Spanish speakers in the region. Currently there are many
important Pueblo painters who are women.
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Red Robin (born about 1918)
unknown affiliation, probably Zuni
Although little is known about this artist, at least for a time he lived in both Santa Fe and Taos. In the 1930s he was employed by
the Colorado Federal Art Project of the Works Progress
Administration. He later moved to New York and became a textile
designer. Unlike other Pueblo paintings, Landscape with Two
Figures on Horseback represents the artist's interest in a looser
approach to creating images. Perhaps Red Robin was responding to
the work of Anglo artists in Santa Fe and Taos who used watercolor
in an impressionistic style. To indicate landscape and figures, he uses broad strokes of watercolor without the sharply
defined outlines that characterize most Pueblo watercolors.
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Tse Ye Mu (1902–1972)
San Ildefonso Pueblo
Like several other Pueblo painters, Tse Ye Mu was included in the first major exhibition of American Indian art in the
United States. The Exhibition of Indian Tribal Arts, curated by
the artist John Sloan, opened in New York in 1931 and contained six
hundred works of art from twenty-one tribes. Tse Ye Mu received a
commission to paint a mural for the opening of the exhibition at
the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1933. The
artist was also employed, probably as an animation artist, by the
Walt Disney Studios in Hollywood, California, for a short period in
the 1950s.
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Thomas Vigil (about 1889–1960)
Tesuque Pueblo
Although the pueblo of Tesuque is located only a few miles from the pueblo of San Ildefonso, Tesuque experienced little of the artistic
renaissance of San Ildefonso. Painter Thomas Vigil began painting
before 1920 and was one of the first painters from Tesuque Pueblo.
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