Adobe Gallery Blog

J. D. Roybal grew up under the artistic influence of his well-known uncle, Awa Tsireh. Early in his education, he studied at St. Catherine's School in Santa Fe and at the Business College of Santa Fe. In the early 1950s he and Julia were married and it was then that he started producing pueblo dance designs on hand-painted Christmas cards and note cards. By 1955 he was seriously painting larger works and recognition for his talents came from the Heard Museum in Phoenix and the Philbrook in Oklahoma. He received a consistent string of first prizes in painting for each year since the Eight Northern Pueblos Arts and Crafts Shows began.

He is mostly known by collectors for his Koshare clown figures, generally in note card size, but he was quite adept at painting larger images and very good at illustrating traditional dance figures and individual people. This painting of a Tewa woman in traditional pueblo clothing and holding a polychrome jar is an extraordinary painting for Roybal. The treatment of her hair is almost identical to that in a painting by Awa Tsireh we had in the past, good evidence of the influence Awa Tsireh had on his nephew. The painting is signed Oquwa in lower right.

Condition: appears to be in original condition but has not been examined out of the frame
Provenance: Adobe Gallery sold this painting to clients in 1989 and now they have brought it back to us for placement in another client's collection for their enjoyment.
Recommended Reading: American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas by Dorothy Dunn

Title: San Ildefonso Pueblo Original Painting of a Tewa Woman
Artist: J. D. Roybal (1922-1978) Oquwa-Rain God
Category: Paintings
Origin: San Ildefonso Pueblo
Medium: tempera
Size: 6-1/2" x 4" image; 13-1/8" x 10-5/8" framed
Item # C3349C