Helen Hardin Original Painting titled “Mimbres Wolf” [SOLD]

"Mimbres Wolf" is an original painting by Santa Clara Pueblo artist Helen Hardin. Over the years, Adobe Gallery has handled many Hardin pieces completed using some variation of the style and subject matter seen here—smaller format depictions of animals in profile, over geometric backgrounds. Remarkably, each example is unique, which reminds the viewer of Hardin's immense talent and suggests a true affinity for each of her animal subjects.

With this piece, Hardin offered an updated variation of the sort of animal imagery that will be familiar to anyone who has studied ancestral Puebloan artwork. She did this often, and she did it beautifully, depicting Mimbres figures in her own modern, stylish manner. Here, a brown and gold checkered wolf with a turquoise eye stands, alert, atop geometric forms filled with parallel lines. In the background, circular forms—perhaps a sun or moon—provide a distant frame around the foreground figure. Additional geometric elements appear along the right and left sides, in a beautiful combination of gray, gold, and brown tones.

The painting is signed Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh and dated 1978 in lower right. It is framed in an updated recreation of the two-tiered framing style preferred by Hardin.

Helen Hardin (1943-1984) Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh or "Little Standing Spruce" was an innovative and influential painter from Santa Clara Pueblo. Hardin was born in 1943 to Santa Clara Pueblo painter Pablita Velarde and Caucasian civil servant Herbert Hardin. Inspired by her mother, she began creating and selling paintings as a teenager. She went in a different direction than her mother and her mother's peers, creating more contemporary works that depict Native American symbology with striking geometrical patterns and abstract imagery. She died of cancer in 1984, leaving behind an astounding body of work for her many admirers to enjoy.

Condition: excellent condition

Provenance: this Helen Hardin Original Painting titled "Mimbres Wolf" is from a private collection

Recommended Reading: Changing Woman: The Life and Art of Helen Hardin by Jay Scott

TAGS: Santa Clara Pueblo, Pablita Velarde, Native American Prints, Native American Paintings, Helen Hardin, Santa Clara Pueblo Painter, Southwest Indian Pottery, Zia Pueblo,  Southwest Indian Pottery