Original Painting of a Quail [SOLD]

In 1951, an arts silkscreen printing business named Tewa Enterprises was started in Santa Fe by Charles Barrows, a silkscreen printer, and Harrison Begay, the well-known Navajo painter. Tewa’s mission was to hand silkscreen reproductions of Navajo and Pueblo paintings and make them available to a wide audience at low prices.  Subsequently, the current owner, Cathie Sullivan purchased Tewa Enterprises and now the business has ceased work.

Before a silkscreen print can be made, there must be an original work of art from which to make the print.  Gerald Nailor was one of the artists selected by Tewa to provide original paintings from which they could make silkscreen prints.  This painting of a Quail was one of the original paintings from Nailor that was made into silkscreen prints.  However, this is the original painting and not a silkscreen print.

"Gerald Nailor was the suave stylist-decorator. His lovely patterns of horses, deer, and antelopes were smartly and proudly drawn with never a thought for natural appearance. Every detail of their design was accomplished with adroitness and polish. If one must use the term in connection with Indian art, his work was sophisticated.” Dunn 1968

Nailor painted two separate images of Quail and both were made into silkscreen prints by Tewa Enterprises.  This is the original painting from which one of the silkscreen prints of Quail was made. It is dated 1951, the first year of Tewa Enterprises and the year before Nailor died.  Nailor was fond of animals and birds and his love for them is well illustrated by the number of paintings of those that he made during his short life as an artist.

Condition: original condition

Reference: American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas by Dorothy Dunn, 1968

Provenance: from the archives of Tewa Enterprises