Artist

Awa Tsireh

born San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM 1898-died San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM ca. 1955
Also known as
  • Alfonso Roybal
  • Cattail Bird
Born
San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, United States
Died
San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, United States
Active in
  • Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Biography

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 through him 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, to devote his full time to painting. He was given studio space in the museum along with Fred Kabotie, a Hopi artist, and Velino Shije Herrera of Zia.

Andrew Connors Pueblo Indian Watercolors: Learning by Looking, A Study Guide (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1993).

Works by this artist (1 item)

Nancy Wolf, Expulsion, 1980, pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift from the collection of Eric Green and Jock Truman, 1996.20
Expulsion
Date1980
pencil on paper
Not on view

Exhibitions

Media - 1985.66.404 - SAAM-1985.66.404_1 - 9039
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists
October 11, 2019March 13, 2020
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists examines representations of buffalo and their integration into the lives of Native Americans on the Great Plains in the 1830s and in the twentieth century.
Media - 1979.144.41 - SAAM-1979.144.41_1 - 5719
The Modern Pueblo Painting of Awa Tsireh
September 3, 2015January 31, 2016
The paintings of Awa Tsireh (1898–1955), represent an encounter between the art traditions of native Pueblo peoples in the Southwestern United States and the American modernist art style begun in New York, which spread quickly across the country.
 The Protagonist of an Endless Story by Angel Rodríguez-Díaz
Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea
July 28, 2023January 15, 2024
Ideas about the American West, both in popular culture and in commonly accepted historical narratives, are often based on a past that never was, and fail to take into account important events that actually occurred.