Painting of Mountain Lion & Deer by Romando Vigil [SOLD]

Early in its days of providing lodging for visitors to Santa Fe, the La Fonda Hotel—the Fred Harvey Company hotel at the end of the Santa Fe Trail at the plaza in Santa Fe—supported Native American artists of New Mexico by purchasing paintings from them and hanging them in every room of the hotel. Many of the young artists from the pueblos were represented in the hotel.

The Fred Harvey Company sold the hotel in 1968 and it was after the new owners settled in that the paintings were removed and sold by the hotel. We have not been able, yet, to determine exactly the year this was done.

This painting of a mountain lion chasing a deer is one of the paintings from the hotel. It is clearly labeled in the lower right of the painting La Fonda 419, indicating it was once in room 419. Holes in the wood frame where the painting was screwed to the wall are still evident. The artist’s name was obliterated for some reason, but it is still discernable that the artist was Romando Vigil. It is estimated that the painting was completed in the 1920s.

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 culture history of the world. Although Vigil left the pueblo and lived in California for many years, he continued to paint pueblo images from memory. He returned to San Ildefonso and painted for about 10 years before his death in 1978.

Condition: The painting appears to be in original excellent condition. The elaborate matting that was cut to follow the contours of the upper part of the painting is still in excellent condition.