Original Painting of a Ceremonial Drummer [R]

Tonita Peña began painting when she was seven years old. She was the only woman painter in her generation and was part of the original group who participated in the contemporary watercolor movement.

In this Original Painting of a Ceremonial Drummer, Tonita presents a drummer during a ceremony.  He is shown with his mouth open indicating he is chanting while drumming.  The early pueblo style of painting, which has no ground plane and no background, was meticulously carried out in this piece.

Joe Herrera has stated that when his mother first started painting she signed her paintings only with her Indian name Quah Ah. This lasted until sometime around 1915. A variation of this signature occurred shortly before or at the time she became pregnant with her second son, probably in 1917 or 1918. In 1921 she began using both names in her signatures, one name above the other.

Quah Ah

Tonita peña

Then around 1930, she added cartouches to her signature block, as in this painting. Her cartouches were always pueblo pottery symbols from her adopted pueblo of Cochiti. She had been born at San Ildefonso Pueblo but moved to Cochiti at age 12 to live with her aunt and uncle, Martina and Florentino Montoya, who also had moved from San Ildefonso to Cochiti Pueblo.

The drummer is beautifully clothed in a purple shirt and extremely colorful trousers. He wears a silver and turquoise concha belt that is holding a twig of evergreen on his back.  Around his neck, he is shown wearing a most favored necklace of turquoise and hieshe with jaclas suspended at the bottom.  He has a headband and has his hair tied in a chonga.  The drum is painted in the traditional manner seen at Cochiti and other Pueblos of New Mexico.

Condition: there are a couple small puncture holes in the paper in upper left, a surface tear in upper center and a couple minor creases in the paper.  These could have been concealed with the mat but the owner chose not to hide the flaws.

Provenance: ex. coll. Richard M. Howard, Santa Fe collector and art dealer

Recommended Reading:  Tonita Peña by Samuel Gray

This painting pairs well with our Item #C3918D (click here to view now), which is a Single Pueblo Male dancer of the kind seen accompanying the dancers in the Basket Dance.  If someone wishes to purchase the pair, we would have the drummer reframed to match the dancer at no additional cost to the purchaser.