Isleta Pueblo Houses on a Hill

Adobe Gallery had a long and pleasant relationship with Ed Jojola.  We represented him at the Albuquerque gallery location and at the Santa Fe location.  It was a loss to us and to the art world when he passed away in 2014.  We miss his cheerful visits bringing us a box of small paintings every month or so.

I consider myself a detailist, using a realistic technique, which reveals my background as a technical illustrator. I strive for beauty, rhythm, accuracy and telling a story from the Native American point of view in a way that captures both the past and the present, and to show my love for the simple things in life, such as eating Indian bread baked from a horno or resting in the shade of a juniper tree along the Manzano (apple) Mountain range. 
—Shirpoyo

Some of Shirpoyo's exhibits were with the Santa Fe Indian Market, Colorado Indian Market, Glenwood Springs Fall Arts Festival, Colorado, and New Mexico State University. He was featured in articles in the Denver Post, Albuquerque Journal, and Dallas News, along with various travel section magazines throughout the United States.

Many of Shirpoyo's paintings are owned by patrons throughout the United States as well as Canada, England, France, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, and South America, to name a few.  It was with much pleasure that we accepted this large watercolor brought to us by a resident of Santa Fe.

Shirpoyo basically painted scenes in and around his village of Isleta Pueblo.  This watercolor features a couple of adobe houses on a hilltop at the pueblo.  There are ladders leaning against the buildings, horno ovens outside in the yard, and a female in colorful clothing heading toward one of the houses.  The foreground is awash in beautiful fall colors as the native grasses began their annual sleep. 

Ed Shirpoyo Jojola was an outstanding watercolorist and a professional technical illustrator.  He painted what he saw and where he lived.  His paintings of the New Mexico sky were so dramatic that someone not familiar with such skies, found it hard to believe they were presented accurately, but those of us who live here know he painted them as they exist from time to time. 

This watercolor is signed in lower left Shirpoyo and dated 1987.

Condition; appears to be in original condition

Provenance: from a Santa Fe resident