Original Earth Painting “Deer Dancer” [SOLD]

Pablita Velarde of Santa Clara Pueblo was best known for her earth paintings, where she used mineral and rock elements, which she would grind on a metate and mano until the result was a powdery substance from which she made her paints.

This is an earth painting illustrating a traditional Tewa Pueblo Deer Dancer. Notice the extraordinary detail in the evergreen boughs, knit stockings, rain sash, and the necklace.

It illustrates well her mastery of presenting a work of great delicacy and charm. The image is decorative, yet lifelike, with careful attention to authentic detail. A swish of action in the Deer Dancer is delicately suggested. The name of Pablita Velarde remains first among those of Santa Clara Pueblo painters and is well recognized whenever modern native painting is known.