Original Painting of Pueblo Male Chanters [SOLD]

Unquestionably the outstanding Tesuque Pueblo painter and one of the most outstanding of all the pueblo artists was Patrick Swazo Hinds. Adopted at the age of 9 by a California family, Swazo grew up off the reservation but returned every summer to Tesuque. It is this exposure to a different way of life that is probably responsible for his style of art and that, in turn, is responsible for his wide appeal and his great success as an artist.

Swazo exhibited widely in the West, with many general or one-man shows in Berkeley and San Francisco, and in Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma.  Some of his one-man shows were at the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, and the Beaux Arts Gallery, Oakland—all in the 1960s—and another show, a very superior one, at the Heard in 1970.  His awards at these and other shows are much too many to mention.  He frequently won First and Purchase awards. 

Swazo easily combined a Native American inheritance by birth with an Anglo education to produce a painting style he described as "Indian theme to nonobjective abstract."  He is still recognized as a major artist of the 20^th century.

In this painting—believed to be oil on paper—Swazo illustrates three pueblo men chanting, most likely during a pueblo plaza dance.  The men are illustrated completely in brown color, with only one man wearing a solid red bandana around his head.  One can almost visualize Swazo with a brush loosely and casually applying strokes to the paper.  It is this loose style, with no fine detail, that makes his art so appealing.

The painting is signed Swazo in lower left in very broad strokes.  It has recently been examined out of the frame and put back in using spacers between paper and glass and using acid-free materials for backing the painting. UV filtering Conservation Glass replaced the original glass.  The red wood liner and the dark brown wood frame perfectly compliment the painting.

Condition: original condition

Provenance:  from the personal collection of Margaret Gutierrez, potter of Santa Clara Pueblo

Recommended Reading:  Southwest Indian Painting a changing art by Clara Lee Tanner