Adobe Gallery Blog
Subject: Pop Chalee Painting of Three Leaping Deer
Pop Chalee was well known for her murals and was commissioned to do work for Marshall Fields in Chicago, Santa Fe Railroad Ticket Office in Santa Fe, New Mexico State Capitol Building, the Albuquerque Airport and the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. One of her most interesting works, which can still be seen today, is part of a mural commissioned for Maisel's Gallery on Central Avenue in downtown Albuquerque. In this piece she collaborated with other well-known artists Harrison Begay, Awa Tsireh, Joe Herrera and Pablita Velarde. Two of Pop Chalee's very large paintings hang in the Albuquerque International Airport.
Blue Flower, as she is known, was praised for her whimsical interpretations of animal and forest scenes executed in bold, bright colors. She studied in the 1930s at the Santa Fe Indian School under the tutelage of Dorothy Dunn, whose influence is quite apparent in her work as she created traditional two dimensional scenes of animals and everyday pueblo life. However, she veered away from Dunn's more conservative interpretations of Native life with her use of color and fairytale-like creatures such as these three leaping deer.
Pop Chalee had her own style which has not been copied by any other Native artists. Her animals are lean and graceful and traditionally have long extended legs. These three leaping deer are outlined in black and painted in three different shades of tan. There is no ground plane or backdrop as is traditional with students of the Indian School. The half circle in upper right could be her interpretation of the moon. The single flowering plant in lower left is the extent of decoration. The painting is signed in lower right.
Condition: The painting is in original condition.
Provenance: from a major painting collector family of Arizona
Recommended Reading: The World of Flower Blue by Margaret Cesa
Subject: Pop Chalee Painting of Three Leaping Deer
Artist: Merina Lujan (1906-1993) Pop Chalee - Blue Flower
Category: Paintings
Origin: Taos Pueblo
Medium: casein
Size: 9-1/4" x 7" image; 15-3/4" x 13-1/2" framed
Item # C3267N