Adobe Gallery Blog
Original Painting Entitled “Pronghorn Bucks” by Yel-Ha-Yah (Charles Lee) - C3653A
"One Navajo artist whose paintings never fail to appeal in their quiet tone and delicacy of color is Charlie Lee. 'Yel-Ha-Yah' is his signature, and he has explained it as a shortening of Hush-Ka-Yel-Ha-Yah, meaning 'warrior who came out,' a name given him by his grandmother. And a more peaceful warrior never existed.
"Lee was born in western New Mexico on April 14, 1926, near Red Rock, Arizona. He started school at the age of seven, attending at one time or another St. Michaels Catholic Indian School, Southern Ute Indian School, Red Rock Day School, and Shiprock School, and Santa Fe Indian School in his senior year. "When he was nine or ten years old, Charlie Lee often took care of his grandfather's horses...(He) has often spoken lovingly and proudly in the same breath of the long line of palominos, pintos, buckskins, and a burro at the end, going to water. "In his senior year at the Santa Fe Indian School, Lee took art under Geronima Montoya. Upon his graduation in 1946, he returned to the Navajo Reservation. Because he 'did not feel at home at all,' he returned to the school in Santa Fe and undertook more work." Tanner 1973