Original Painting “Mother with Four Days Old Infant” [R]

Special Value Offer: This is being offered at a 25% price reduction from $850 to $635.

Rafael Medina (1929-1998) Teeyacheena painted this image at the age of 23 years.  It represents the first exposure of the newborn to the outside world and might be the day of the naming ceremony of the baby.  It is a watercolor on paper and recently framed using acid-free materials and a dark brown wood frame.

Clara Lee Tanner, in her book Southwest Indian Painting, stated that Medina studied at Albuquerque under Velino Herrera (Ma Pe Wi) and José Rey Toledo.  She does not state that he attended the Albuquerque Indian School but perhaps that is where he studied before entering the Santa Fe Indian School.  Neither Dunn nor Tanner is clear about that.  Medina attended the Santa Fe Indian School after the departure of Dorothy Dunn and during the tenure of art teacher Gerónima Montoya, probably entering school in the early 1940s.  Following high school, he attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe.

Medina illustrated early in his life that he was a talented painter, following in the footsteps of Zia’s most famous painter of the time, Ma Pe Wi.  This painting by Medina is softer in tone than his later works.  His later works are brighter as if painted with acrylic paints.  In traditional Santa Fe Indian School style, he painted the main subject with no other items such as ground plane or sky or vegetation.  His ability at detail is quite evident in the black manta being worn by the female, particularly in the texture shown in the black fabric, as well as the texture of the animal skin used as a wrap for the baby.  

Condition: very good condition. It is signed R. Medina in lower right and dated 1952.

Provenance: from the collection of a family from Pennsylvania

Recommended Reading: Southwest Indian Painting: A Changing Art by Clara Lee Tanner