Beatien Yazz Original Painting of Man with Slingshot [SOLD]

This original painting by Diné artist Beatien Yazz features a man aiming a slingshot.  At about six inches in height and just over five inches in width, this is a smaller piece, and modest scale seems to suit the image perfectly.  The man leans back and pulls the band of his slingshot, aiming either into the bird-filled sky or at some other out-of-frame target.

Yazz’ work with this piece is subtle but stylish.  His colors are strong and attractive, and his composition elegant as ever.  The earth upon which the man stands is represented by three lines of linked semicircles in red, pink, and white.  Wispy lines in tan rise from the earth, forming plants that almost blend in with the paper’s color. A small signature in the corner completes one of the stronger smaller-scaled paintings we’ve seen from Beatien Yazz.

The painting is signed Beatien Yazz in the lower right.  It is framed in a black frame, under two layers of matting in off-white and blue.

Beatien Yazz (1928-2012) Little No Shirt (Jimmy Toddy) was a painter who was born in 1928 on the Navajo Reservation.  At an early age, Yazz met Bill and Sallie Lippincott, traders at Wide Ruins Trading Post. They recognized Yazz’s talent and made available to him scraps of paper and other equipment so that he might practice his artwork.  Alberta Hannum’s book Spin a Silver Dollar tells the story of the Lippincotts and the young Navajo boy they encouraged. The book was illustrated by the boy himself—Beatien Yazz. He served in the U.S. Marines in World War II and was a member of the famed Navajo Code Talkers. Following the war, he returned to the reservation and began to paint in earnest. He specialized in subjects familiar to him in his daily life on the reservation. He has been eminently popular with collectors since the 1950s.

Condition: excellent condition

Provenance: this Beatien Yazz Original Painting of Man with Slingshot private New Mexico Collection

Recommended Reading: Spin a Silver Dollar, Alberta Hannum

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