Adobe Gallery Blog

This painting was most likely executed before Vigil moved to California in the 1950s to work for Walt Disney Studios.  It is of his earlier style and the person, from whose family it came, received it before his retirement in 1955.  The colors are still brilliantly beautiful and there is no evidence of fading or acid damage to the paper on which it is painted.

Romando Vigil was one of the San Ildefonso self-taught artists in the early part of the 20th century. He was a leader within the San Ildefonso Watercolor Movement, a movement that caught fire during 1915 to 1917. It fostered an art form unmatched in the cultural history of the world. These men portrayed tribal culture and local wildlife, attaining a flat decorative character, absent of backgrounds and foregrounds, and free of traditional perspective, with an unerring color sense. Their success in these presentations was due to their understanding the ceremonials they painted because they had participated in them since childhood. They understood the meanings of the symbolism they interpreted.

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