Original Painting of Young Diné (Navajo) Boy with a Sheep [SOLD]

Rarely did Beatien Yazz paint in black and white, apparently preferring to use brilliant colors, but his renditions in black and white are extraordinary. His outline of the boy’s shirt in black with highlights of white to illustrate creases or wrinkles is just the amount of contrast needed for effect.

Beatien Yazz is a Navajo at heart. He still lives on the Navajo Reservation within a few miles of where he grew up near the Wide Ruins Trading Post. He is married and has seven children. He no longer paints as he now has eyesight problems.

He relates in the book Yazz: Navajo Painter that he had a happy childhood, roaming over the plains and canyons of the Navajo Reservation. He and his closest friend, Philip Shorty, would spend their days playing, swimming in muddy waters, and shooting anything they could find with their slingshots.

It is with this feeling that Yazz has portrayed the lives of young Navajo boys in his paintings. In this one, a young Navajo boy is running alongside a sheep, neither one with a worry with which to contend. The painting is charming and beautifully executed.

Condition: The painting is in original excellent condition and has never been framed but is currently shrink-wrapped for protection. It is signed in lower right.

Provenance: This painting is among a collection from the Balcomb family, formerly owners of an art gallery which they closed in 1976.