Beatien Yazz Original Painting of Women in a Winter Storm [SOLD]

This signed original painting was created by Diné painter Beatien Yazz.  Yazz became widely known and collected for his sweet and accessible images, which often featured scenes of Navajo Reservation life.  For this piece, he chose to depict a scene that’s a bit more challenging than his usual subjects: a group of Diné women travelling in a windy winter snowstorm.

The scene includes five women.  They all face in the same direction, and they’re dressed almost identically.  They wrap their arms around their chests and wear blankets over their shoulders and heads, shielding themselves from the cold.  Snow buries the feet of their moccasins, and wind whips their hair up and away from their faces.  Up above, where he’d usually place a serene cloud formation, yazz added a smoky web of blue and gray lines to serve as an abstracted depiction of the winter storm. 

The painting is signed B. Yazz in the lower right.   It is framed in a carved wood frame.

Beatien Yazz (1928-2012) Little No Shirt (Jimmy Toddy) was an influential Diné painter. He studied art at the Santa Fe Indian School, and then attended Mills College.  He experimented with a variety of media over the years but completed the majority of his works in casein and tempera paints.  Like many Diné painters of his era, he preferred to paint scenes of daily life on the Navajo Reservation.  He is known for sweet, appealing images of wildlife and children, but he did branch out to include many other subjects as well.  His work has a subtle and unique decorative quality that has aged well and remains very popular among collectors.

Condition: excellent condition

Provenance: this Beatien Yazz Original Painting of Women in a Winter Storm is from a private collection

Reference: The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters, Patrick D. Lester

Relative Links: Navajo Reservation, Spin a Silver Dollar, Paint the Wind, paintings, Yazz: Navajo Painter, Beatien Yazz, Navajo Nation Painter