Mixed Media Painting of Yei Deities [R]

This painting depicts male and female deities of the Diné.  It may seem out of place for a pueblo artist to paint subjects of the Diné culture but it is an accepted practice.  The Native religions are similar even in their differences.  Paintings of Katsinas and paintings of Yei are both depicting Native supernatural deities.  Both Helen and her mother, Pablita Velarde, painted Yei deities on rare occasions.

Helen Hardin’s life was total dedication to her work and she retreated into the spirituality of what she was doing.  She was born of a Santa Clara Pueblo woman, Pablita Velarde, and a non-Indian man, and raised in Albuquerque away from pueblo events, but she nevertheless drew on her Native culture.  She had no patience to follow the two-dimensional painting style of the Santa Fe Indian School to which so many other artists were following.  Early in her painting career, she developed a modernist style of presentation, sometimes venturing into Picasso-style abstraction.  This painting is more reverential in presentation perhaps because she felt abstraction was not appropriate for deities.

If one were to overlook the three Yei deities and two corn plants for a moment and study the background treatment it would be quite clear that it, in itself, could be a painting, certainly abstract in style, not unlike an Agnes Tait painting.  By placing the three Yei and two corn plants over such a background, Helen calmed the abstractness into a more traditional presentation.  She was an amazing artist and this painting provides us a clear indication of that.

The painting is signed in lower right Tsa-sah-wee-eh (and her spruce logo) and dated 1977.  It is framed with a fabric-covered mat and a gold-tinted-over-red wood frame, both complimentary to the colors of the painting.

Condition: appears to be in original condition

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

Provenance: from the collection of a Texas family