Original Painting of Three Pueblo Dancers [SOLD]

This original watercolor painting was made by Emeliano Yepa, a Jemez Pueblo artist who was a student at the Santa Fe Indian School during the 1930s. It is a three-figure dance scene depicting a Buffalo Dance. Two male dancers wear horned headdresses and carry rattlers and feathers; a female dancer appears in between them, also wearing a headdress and carrying feathers. Yepa appears in a few of the major texts covering early Native painting, albeit briefly, suggesting that he was most prolific during the 1930s before passing away at a young age.

Yepa's bold, opaque watercolors serve this scene nicely. He used a wide color palette, which allowed him to pay attention to the details of his subjects' clothing and dance paraphernalia. Strong outlines in black add sharp definition to each figure, and the manner in which they are arranged—in line, making a gentle turn toward and then away from the viewer—feels both natural and visually appealing.

The painting is signed E. Yepa in lower right. It is framed in high-quality materials, with a window cut into the backing to show the Santa Fe Indian School stamp.

Emeliano Yepa (c.1920s- c.1950s) was a painter from Jemez Pueblo. The plan for a painting studio at the Santa Fe Indian School had been four years in the making before it finally opened in the fall of 1932. Dorothy Dunn oversaw the art department. It was in the second year of The Studio that Dorothy Dunn first mentioned Yepa, and she described him as painting pageantry. He was one of three students selected to paint murals in true fresco for The Studio and one of the residence halls. One of the mural paintings by Yepa was "A Summer Dance." In the fourth year (1935-36), a Museum of New Mexico exhibit was organized to present to the public works by the students. Frederic H. Douglas's review of the show included the following statement: "Much fine art will come from this area, with its strong tradition in painting. No.125 by E. Yepa, displays the work of a painter who clings, at least in his pictures, to a style seen in the first days of the movement. His conservatism is to be commended, for while progress is desirable, a brake is often useful."

An analysis of the works of all the students in the fifth year (1936-37) stated of Yepa, "Emeliano Yepa had a somewhat stilted style which enhanced the formal patterns of ceremonial and small Jemez scenes he chose to paint. His brilliant palette brought animation and a note of daring to his balanced, conservative compositions."

Jeanne Snodgrass, in her Biographical Directory published in 1968, lists the artist—or another similarly named person, perhaps—as Emilina rather than Emeliano, but has no information regarding birth, death, or age. She states that the artist attended the Indian School from 1932 to 1937 and was included in a National Gallery of Art exhibit in Washington, DC in 1953. Clara Lee Tanner's Southwest Indian Painting: A Changing Art describes his style before concluding, "Yepa painted but a few years, for he died when relatively young."

Condition: excellent condition

Provenance: this Original Painting of Three Pueblo Dancers is from a private Santa Fe collection

References:

Southwest Indian Painting: A Changing Art by Clara Lee Tanner

American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas by Dorothy Dunn

American Indian Painters A Biographical Directory, 1968, Jeanne O. Snodgrass

TAGS: Jemez Pueblo; Native American Paintings, Emeliano Yepa